


die on your hill

by cabinscrabble



Category: Video Blogging RPF, oneyplays, sleepycabin
Genre: (Or is it?), :), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Friends to Lovers to Enemies to Lovers, M/M, One-sided pining, btw its set in aug/sept 2017 unless stated otherwise, chriz n sach are stubborn babies, had a lot of fun writing this, supermega n gamegrumps n sleepycabin mentions, will come back and edit up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:08:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22858285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cabinscrabble/pseuds/cabinscrabble
Summary: Chris O’Neill is as stubborn as stubborn gets— unfortunately, so is his ex. Mason and Julian now try to fix a relationship they didn’t even know about a week prior. Happy memories, progressively souring. Pure resentment.Chris might miss Zach, but he will die on his hill before he crawls back to him.September of 2017 is a month to remember, for everyone involved.
Relationships: Chris O’Neill & DingDongVG (Video Blogging RPF) & Julian Marcel, Chris O’Neill/Zach Hadel, DingDongVG/Julian Marcel, OneyPebbles
Comments: 54
Kudos: 59





	1. euclidian closet

**Author's Note:**

> im making dingdong’s name mason in-fic bc im partially still stuck in 2017, he’s also human sorry i didnt wanna do it either
> 
> i hope this isnt tooooooo ooc, i really tried. part of me is icky about writing RPF, but also HOW is there NOTHING about chris/zach im ashamed of all of you
> 
> bits and pieces of everything will change as i write this, i learn new things that these boys have done online Every Day

Parties are always super awkward to Mason, especially the ones where he only knows a handful of people. So of course he was stuck in just that kind of party. 

It was a whole semi-extravagant deal, maybe about 50 or so people in one huge loft apartment. People had flown in from everywhere to reunite, but it all still had a very casual air to it. From what he could gather, it was mostly a Sleepycabin reunion with assorted friends brought along for the ride and the vibe. Familiar faces dotted the crowd, but Mason would never dare try to talk to them. People mingled around like flowing water, loud noises were commonplace, plenty of hugs. It was nice enough. It would’ve been nicer if he knew more of these people, but hey, he’s honored to have been invited. A party’s a party. 

Mason and Julian ended up in a corner talking with Matt and Ryan and a couple others he’d met before, all joking around and telling dumb stories and sipping on punch. Fortunately they seemed to be the quieter corner. Mason would occasionally hear barks of laughter and shouts from across the room, but some were especially familiar. He’d look over at a specific laugh to see Chris with some of his closest buds on the couch, all doing some kind of bit and chugging drinks. They were all really happy. Hell— this was the giddiest he’d ever even seen Chris. 

Mason smiled, overhearing a bit about a monkey and a village. He liked that one. This was a good enough party. 

The door opened and a couple more people trickled in, each greeted with “Hey!”’s and “You’re here!”’s and other assorted greetings. Chris and his group had all looked over at this latest bunch, some waving, some shouting. But one guy walked in and Mason saw Chris’ face go from recognition into immediate, cold anger. That mood change send a chill down his spine. 

What the hell is that about? Who even is that guy?

Mason went to tune back into his group, but Julian grabbed at his hand first. The two locked eyes, sharing the same look of worry. 

Julian lowered his voice. “Did- Did you see—?”

“Chris? Yeah.” Mason nodded, glancing back again. Chris was on the couch, glaring daggers. The rest of that group had gotten up to greet the late incomers. “What’s going on with that?”

“I don’t know, but it killed the mood. Who— Who even is that guy?”

Mason squinted a bit. He looked like... average height and build, short brown hair, sorta big nose. The chatter and music was just loud enough that he couldn’t hear his voice. “I dunno. Don’t recognize him.”

“Hopefully that doesn’t go bad, then.” Julian looked back too, then brushed at Mason’s hand again before going back to group conversation. Mason shook his head and went back too. 

Minutes flew by. Matt and Ryan were interrupting each other to relay a story as humanly fast yet as humanly slow as possible, their friend Tucker trying to steer them into something comprehensible but failing hilariously. Julian was already wheezing, Mason was giggling louder than usual. He sensed motion behind him faintly, but ignored it when Matt shoved Ryan hard into the chair behind them just to say his point before Ryan kicked the backs of his legs. He and Julian all but exploded in laughter.

Mason felt a quick tap on his shoulder. He turned around, mouth opening to deliver a punch-drunk “Huh?”, when lips locked with his. Soft, perfectly placed lips. A kiss passionate enough to make him lock up, his arms shoot up just enough to feel the fabric of the unknown’s jacket. Experienced hands went on his waist, feeling and holding all the right parts. A hand tucked onto his lower back made his whole body shiver. Mason felt infatuated immediately, and he had no fucking idea who this was. Holy. Shit. 

The kiss was broken by the assailant with an audible parting of their lips. A string of drool connected the two together still. The assailant leaned back: It. It was Chris.

Mason was stunned. So was Julian. So was everyone else in a 5 foot radius. 

“Chris, what the fuck.” He could barely breathe, could barely even speak through shock.

“C’mon, play into it real quick. Act like this is normal.” Chris carefully moved one of his hands to rest gingerly on Mason’s arm, the other gently moving Mason’s other hand to his hips and holding it in place. He did it with such ease, such care, that Mason would think that he’d done this dance a thousand times. 

But he thought Chris was straight as a fucking telephone pole. 

“Chris,” he hissed out stronger this time. He felt embarrassment and restrained anger heating up his face. “What the fuck.”

Chris looked over his shoulder, then back at Mason with perfect softness. “I’ll tell ya everything in a bit,” he whispered, then pecked Mason’s bright red cheek with a kiss and whirled around with a wave to make his way through the room again.

Mason stood there, staring after Chris, for what felt like an eternity. Chris went back to the couch. His friends joined him. He acted like nothing had just happened. 

And that one fucking new guy kept looking back and forth at him and Mason, his expression unreadable. 

Mason was ready to punch someone. 

Julian’s guiding arm pulled him back away from Chris into the group. Everyone was staring at him. 

“Mason,” Julian whispered, “what the hell just happened.”

Mason looked at the floor, then at Julian. Anger was building into rage, the more he thought about the last thirty seconds. “I don’t fucking know.”

It was 3AM, and the party was finally staring to clear out after they got threatened with noise complaints. Aside from the few people passed out on couches and chairs and beds, everyone made their way out the door within a ten minute span. Mason moved to stand by Chris, Julian quickly following him. He heard Julian whisper to Matt and Ryan before they left that he’d update them ASAP on whatever the hell had happened. Mason, Chris, and Chris’ friend Mick had been the ones to foot the bill on this apartment, so the three of them (and Julian) stayed to weed as many people out as possible before they locked the door. The fucking Mystery Man was one of the last to leave. He stole a couple glances at Chris, and Chris only moved to stand closer to Mason with a forced smirk that Mason wanted to beat to death. Chris sighed and dropped the face as soon as he’d left the room.

The door shut behind the last guest. Mick twirled the apartment key on his finger a couple times before he locked it. He looked at Chris quickly. The two nodded. “Well... I’m gonna go uh,” Mick faltered, Chris jerked his head toward the other side of the apartment, “I-I’m gonna go clean the kitchen up.” And he left to do just that. 

This left Chris, Mason, and Julian alone. The two both moved to face Chris, hands next to each other in comfort.

“Chris,” Mason spat out, “what the fuck happened?”

“Look, it’s... it’s a long ass story. Can I tell y’ tomorro—?”

“No. NO. Tell me now.” Mason hoped he was intimidating.

Chris gulped. Intimation worked, clearly. “...Alright. Le’s go on the couch.”

The three sat down, Mason sandwiched in the middle. He shifted around to face Chris, Julian craned behind him with a gentle hand on his back so he could see. 

Chris stared off for a moment before he spoke, struggling to restrain some kind of emotions. “Sorry for grossing you out, I was just... trying to show off. One person that came today, I didn’t fucking know he’d be here, I felt pressured and shit. Had to show him up, act like I’d... actually moved on.”

Mason’s brain was reeling trying to follow along. Julian supplied exactly what he was too stunned to say: “Chris, I fucking thought you were straight.”

Chris laughed quietly, awkward as hell, face heating up. “I try to give off that impression, yeah.” 

Mason glanced back at Julian. He looked just as confused as Mason felt. 

Chris cleared his throat. “Yeah— We can, uh, start there.” He shuffled in his seat. His accent started coming out heavier, from the alcohol and the shame coursing through his veins. “I-I thought I was straight too, I’ve had girlfriends and shit. But.. I’ve never felt as happy with some girl than I have with guys. Kinda hard to say that, since I’ve only been with... one...

“But uh- that one. We did... We did so much together. Good shit too, he wasn’t super abusive or anythin’ don’t get me wrong. We just... e-ended messy. I don’t wanna say I was wrong, he knew he was right, huge ass fight that I hate thinkin’ about. Y’know what I mean, yeah?”

“Who.” Mason spoke with pure venom. “Who- Who is this guy? Who was that guy at the party?”

Chris grinned sheepishly. “The uh... one I dated?”

“Why was he here? You clearly didn’t invite him.” Julian had his arms crossed, his brain trying to puzzle piece everything together. 

“Because— fuck, man, for one he’s a huge reason I’m even where I am. Online, y’know. ‘N my friends are still friends wit’ him, they don’t even know what happened with us. You two are the only ones that know now, I think. Well, you and Mick.” Chris was getting more and more emotional with each passing second, pulling off his hat to anxiously mess with his hair. “I-I miss him and shit. I just... c-can’t have him knowin’.”

Mason frowned. Maybe some of his anger was melting to empathy, maybe it wasn’t. “Why?”

Chris looked at him. “Huh?”

“Why can’t he know you miss him? Why can’t you just fix this?”

Chris laughed, shaky and slightly shrill. “Have ya even met me, Mase? I’ll die on every fuckin’ hill I can stand on, I’ve been told that... s-so many times. I’m not gonna fucking give in now.”

“How long has it been since you two were together, Chris?” Julian spoke only with softness. 

Chris looked down, his brow furrowed as he counted on his fingers. “Eh... one, maybe two years..?”

Mason blinked. “And you two are still that hostile? Over one disagreement?”

Chris nodded. “I-I wish we weren’t. Fuck, I really wish we weren’t.” He was staring at the floor like it was the most goddamn interesting thing to look at. Mason saw his eyes welling up. 

Julian shifted behind him. He knew this had to be getting at him a bit, too. The whole situation sounded similar to one of Jules’ old exes, he’d heard all about him.

Chris cleared his throat, sniffled. “Yeah... again, Mase, sorry for doing that to you. Hope you can kinda get what bullshit was runnin’ through my head when I saw him.”

“Yeah,” Mason mused after a beat, “I can. It’s fine, Chris.”

“...You can? You’re not too mad?” Chris dared to look up through his hair. 

“Oh, I was earlier. But you explained it, and you’re sorry.” He shrugged, but smiled a bit in reassurance. “So no, I’m not mad anymore. You’re my friend, Chris, as retarded as you can be sometimes.”

Chris giggled. “Thanks fer being my friend, then.”

“Of course.” 

The three stayed in comfortable silence for a moment. But... Mason couldn’t hold himself back from asking. 

“So... Who was he, then?”

Chris’ face went bright red. “Uh... eh... dunno if you’ll remember him, he’s done a lot but i-it’s not always really known by n—“

“Chris,” Julian laughed lightly, “just say it. We’ll either know or we won’t.”

Chris looked at his shoes. He moved his hair more in front of his face. He mumbled a name, neither could make it out at first. Chris sniffled again, picked at his sleeve, looked up a bit at the two. “Z-Zach.”

Mason felt Julian immediately react. “Zach?! You dated Zach??”

Chris curled into himself more. “Y-Yeah,” he said in the tiniest voice Mason had heard him genuinely pull.

Mason wasn’t as ahead as Julian was. “Wait, I don’t— who? I don’t—“

Julian grabbed his shoulder, Mason tuned back to look at him. “Zach. Zach Hadel? Psychicpebble? Uhh, arrow to the knee, clown robbery, Hellbend—“

“THAT Zach?! The one with the— with that voice?”

Chris was trying to melt into the couch. His knees were tucked up into his chest. “‘S voice is cute,” he mumbled into his arms.

Julian still sounded bewildered. “And that was Zach? At the party?”

Chris nodded a bit. 

Damn, he realized he’d never seen Zach in person before. Mason wondered if trying to hug him would be too much in this moment. He opted for reaching his arm out to carefully rub one of Chris’. “...I see what you meant then, him and your online career and shit... I’m sorry that it’s that bad with him.”

Chris leaned into the contact slightly, loosened up a bit. “Yeah.”

Mason looked back at Julian, and they both nodded in understanding. Julian got up and Mason scooted into his seat on the end. Chris looked up at the two of them, eyes red. Julian moved to his side, gestured for Chris to move in towards Mason. Chris complied, unfurling his legs from his chest, and Julian sat back down in the spot he left. Mason carefully slid an arm around Chris’ hunched up shoulders, Julian rubbed his leg gently. 

Chris breathed out a laugh. “R-Really, guys..?” 

Julian nodded. Mason squeezed his shoulders for a second in affirmation. 

Chris looked back and forth at them for a second, then leaned into Mason’s stomach. He slowly moved his hand onto Julian’s, who took it and held it. Julian leaned onto him.

“Thanks, gays.”

Mason smiled. “No problemo, gay.”

Chris laughed quietly, his breath catching and hitching. His body froze, his expression mortified at accidentally expressing emotion.

“Chris,” Julian said quietly, shuffling to hold Chris’ hand with both of his, “if you need to you can cry. It’s fine.”

That seemed to be all it took for the dam to break. 

It was 4AM. Chris was shaking, his sobs were silent. Reassuring contact broke him into louder ones, and all three of them knew that this was the first time he’d let himself break down in a while. 

They fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please leave feedback please oh pleeeaaase
> 
> i’ll probably continue dis, i’ll have to figure out a clear direction first tho hahaha
> 
> have a good rest of ur day <3


	2. coffee and memoriee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no, not all of these chapters are gonna be ding’s pov, i plan on moving it around as plot demands heehee... it just so happens that i rly needed him for this one too.  
> if i get further along in this, i’ll probably end up just smushing this chapter into da first one woo. anyways! pls enjoy, im not writing at midnight for once

Julian’s face was screwed up as he drew, redrawing the same lines over and over again in stress. “Man, this feels fuckin’ weird.”

It was 7PM. It had been a day since the party. Chris had postponed their recording session, saying he needed time to recharge and “be a creepy little introvert again.” Mason had just laughed quietly into the phone and agreed to wait a couple days.

Mason typed out a quick “thx bb ily ;*” to Mick before he looked up at the comment. “What? We’re only going around our friend to his other friends, just to get his ex’s number.”

Julian raised an eyebrow.

“...Well, okay, maybe it’s weird now that I say it all out loud,” Mason shook his head, “but we’ve gotta.”

“We really don’t. This is Chris’s drama, not ours.” Mason just looked at Julian. The latter sighed. “Alright, fine, I wanna get in this drama too.”

“See? I’m right sometimes.”

“You’re always right, you genius little programmer.” Julian flashed him a goofy smile and a wink. 

Mason just scrunched his nose and mumbled out something about how Julian was the biggest dork he’d ever fucking known. His phone buzzed in his hand before they could continue bickering though, a new notification sliding in from Mick: it was the number, along with a “Don’t go cheating on Julian ;*”. 

He grinned. “JULES, we got it!”

Julian immediately shoved his tablet down on the bed and scooted over, putting his head on Mason’s shoulder to watch.

Mason copied the number and pasted it into a new conversation. His thumbs froze over the keyboard. “What do..?”

Julian hummed first, before offering, “Say something like ‘hey, is this Zach, I got this number from arin’?”

Mason nodded, typed Julian’s words verbatim and pushed Send. He clicked the phone’s display off. They both stared at it, waiting for the reply. 

Fortunately, only a couple awkward minutes had passed when the notif hit. He opened the phone as fast as he could to read the message:

“erm maybe, Who tf r u?”

“Tha’s gotta be him,” Julian mumbled.

Mason thought for a second, then replied:

this is mason, I was cousinskeeter2k3,  
im still friends w some of yours.  
was wondering if you’d wanna  
come on my stream sometime? DingDongVG

-oh yea u, thatd b fun. meet in the irl first?

yes pls. Youre in LA rn, right

-ye  
-do u mind a starbucks

Nah, thats cool. the one on 3rd and fairfax?

-sure thing. 2pm tmrw?

3?

-2:21.05

See you then

-hell ye

Wait do you mind if i bring my friend julian

-o him  
-go ahead

Alright coolio. see u tmrw

-it’s a date

Mason set down the phone, resolving to never say out loud the strange amount of pride he felt when Zach still recognized him by name. He sighed. It’d be weird, finally meeting him in person.

Julian exhaled softly. “Well, that was easy.”

“Tomorrow’s the hard part—”

“Tomorrow’s tomorrow, and I’m tired now. C’mon, Masey.” Julian pushed himself back to his side of the bed. 

Mason smiled. “Alright, dummy.”

-

The two finally got off the bus at 6th Street’s museum stop. The sky was hazy with pollution that left the world in a warm gray wash, the sun not able to push through the man-made disaster of a climate. Shrubs and dead flowers and dirty glass buildings seemed to have multiplied on these streets via mitosis. Pedestrians clambered over each other and pushed into shops, cars honked dismally. Eight blocks stretched ahead of them with the length of a marathon. 

Mason sighed. “I hate walking. Why don’t we get a car already.”

“You’d hate it even more,” Julian quipped. 

“You’re probably right.”

“I know.”

After some shoves, handholding, heckles, and a near-death moment with a car that didn’t know the difference between its acceleration pedal and its floor, they finally made it into the Starbucks. Mason pulled out his phone as he blindly followed Julian to an empty table, checking the time. 2:13PM, nice. He slumped into a chair, back to the door, Julian preemptively grabbing a third for their table before sitting down himself. They locked eyes, shared a couple deep breaths. The door chimed open just a few seconds after they got in. Julian leaned over to look at the door, blinked, then waved the entrant over. 

If that’s him, it means Zach’s early too, that’s nice. Mason turned around in his seat to greet him.

Zach froze dead in his tracks, mid-taking off sunglasses. Recognition and hostility flashed across his face as soon as he and Mason locked eyes. 

“You.”

Fuck, he didn’t think about this part. 

Julian spoke quickly, fear cracking his voice, “Nono, no, please, don’t go. We can explain.”

“So you’re his new boy toy?” Zach stayed firmly in place. His body language was fucking unreadable, his voice was nasally venom. He looked Mason up and down. “Y’ don’t look like his type.”

“I’m not his anything.” Mason did his best to growl his words. He hoped he wasn’t visibly shaking. 

“Then what the fuck,” Zach took a step forward, practically looming over Mason, “happened on Friday.”

“Please,” Julian begged again, “just sit for a second. We’ll explain.”

Zach stared the both of them down for a time long enough that nearly made Mason get up and bolt while he still could. But, he shrugged. “Fine.” And sat down. 

Mason and Julian glanced over at each other a couple times, both unsure what to even fucking say now. 

“I thought Chris was straight,” was the first sentence Mason blurted out. He mentally facepalmed. 

Zach just looked at him. 

Mason sighed. “Look, I just... wanted to talk. I dunno. I’m trying to fucking figure out what happened between you and Chris, I didn’t know anything until yesterday. Still don’t fuckin’ know much.” He felt Julian’s hand grasp his under the table as he spoke. He squeezed back tight. “He did that at the party for reasons he... didn’t really explain, but he mentioned you.” God, he hoped the lie would work.

Zach seemed to notice their arms reaching for each other. He loosened up a bit. “So you and Chris?”

“Just friends.” 

Zach’s eyes bounced between the two of them like he was watching a ping pong game. His mouth opened like he’d speak, but closed. Mason felt more and more nervous by the second. Zach stood abruptly. “I’m gonna go get shit coffee so the little baristas don’t throw us out. We can talk and shit.” And he left for the counter. 

Julian squeezed Mason’s hand tighter. Mason squeezed back. 

Zach came back a few minutes later, an iced something in hand as he sat down. “So, I’m guessing you wanna know things.”

Mason and Julian nodded, practically in sync. 

Zach let out a snicker. “First— You two are a thing, right?”

“...Is it that obvious?” Julian paled. 

“Kinda.” Zach was smiling. “Anyway, so. Chris.” He stopped smiling. He said out the name like it left a sour taste in his mouth. 

Zach didn’t hold back as many details as Chris had. Their relationship apparently really started some time in 2010 — they’d met up in person for the first time, road tripped around California, did dumb shit, and were together by the end of Chris’ visit. Car sex, Zach ended up saying at the end of a couple different sentences. They stayed steady over long distance for a while, made Hellbenders, did Sleepycabin and shit. No one else really knew they were together, because of one reason that Zach called “ultimately retarded”: they constantly joked about being together. By being blatant and making jabs at the idea, everyone immediately dismissed it. To their friends, it was a bit. No one fucking knew. Except some guy named Tomar, though— he’d apparently walked into Chris’ office to use his toilet and caught the two “making out super fuckin’ hard.” The guy kept quiet, though, and Zach really seemed to respect him for that. 

However, Zach and Chris were the same when it came to talking about the end of their relationship. All Zach said was that they had a fight, and spat out that Chris was “being a goddamn narc about it all, fuck him.” He refused to talk more on it. The memory alone drew pain and bitterness onto his face, and Mason didn’t want to even try to dig deeper now. 

Zach took one last obnoxious sip of his coffee before setting it down unceremoniously. “So, I think that’s it on that. Uh.” He stared at the cup for a second before he snapped his fingers in remembrance. “Oh. Did you actually want me on your stream or were you just being a little gremlin trying to get me here?”

Mason blinked, still processing everything. “Uh, yeah! Y-Yeah, it’d be fun to have you on, sure. Saturday?”

Zach checked his phone. “Wednesday?”

“Deal.” 

It was 3PM. The three sat in silence. Mason and Julian were piecing together Zach’s story. Zach was texting someone. 

Zach broke the silence by clearing his throat and standing. “Fuck, I’ve— I gotta go, sorry. It’s good to actually meet you, Mason, sorry for nearly fucking evaporating you on the spot. You too, Julian, you’re both still cool. When Chris isn’t around.” With that, he was out the door. 

Julian was staring at the table. Zach had left his cup behind. “...Holy shit.”

“Which part.”

“All.”

Mason nodded.

“So,” Mason was using his hands as Chris and Zach props, “Zach meets Chris. Zach likes Chris. Zach and Chris go on trip. Zach tells Chris he likes him, Chris says it back, and uh...” he slaps his hands together, “fucky-fucky.”

Julian snorted. “Fucky-fucky. God.”

Mason giggled. “Yeah. Then dey don’t stop da fucky-fucky, dey do da fucky-fucky forever, but den dey fight? The end?”

Julian was silencing his laughter so hard. 

The bus ground to a halt a block away from Chris’ place, finally. The two got out, still sizing up the situation, still laughing. 

It was 11PM or so now. Chris had called Julian an hour ago, said he really wanted pizza but didn’t want to order it without someone else to eat it too. He threatened to give it all to Matt and Ryan first if they didn’t come over Right Now, so here they were. 

They walked up to the gate and buzzed for his room, Mason tapping the button a couple extra times to let him know they were there. The gate clicked open, and the two went up the stairs. 

Julian stopped Mason around halfway up, though. “Do we... Do we even mention that we talked to Zach?”

“Nah,” Mason shook his head, “that’d ruin the plan I’ve got cooking in my head.”

Julian stared at him straight in the eyes. “You’re telling me your plan as soon as we leave Chris’s tonight.”

Mason nodded. 

They continued up the stairs. The finally got to Chris’ floor, Julian knocked on the door a few times, and it fucking flew open in seconds. Chris grabbed onto the door in support, a big ass grin plastered on his face. “Kingdom Hearts is back.”

Mason blinked. “Chris, our save got deleted—“

“Yeah, pfff, I know that dummy,” he rolled his eyes, then reached into his hoodie pocket and pulled out a thumb drive, “but Amin got it back.”

“How??” 

“He fuckin— He played it all through fer us up ‘til where we were!! He was just here, I gave him some of the pizza, hope ya don’t mind, we’ve got all our fuckin’ items the same too, it’s all there, he fucking did it, God I could fuckin’ kiss him.”

“...Holy shit,” Julian said. Chris just grinned bigger. 

“And- I know my apartment isn’t as good as the Grump’s office, and my mic is a bit shit and the monitor isn’t as huge, but fuck the Grumps, Arin tried to put me in poverty, do y’ wanna record now?” The Irishman was speaking at a velocity they hadn’t even thought possible. Mason was beginning to wonder if Amin drugged the pizza. 

Julian laughed a bit, at the whole situation. “I’m getting pizza first, that’s all I know. Mase, are we down?”

Mason shrugged, smiled, nodded. Chris took that as a yes and pumped a fist into the air, then ran back into his apartment. Mason and Julian exchanged a face, and came inside. 

A few minutes later and Chris was clambering around his computer, setting up his computer and PS2. Mason was watching from the couch and fucking stuffing his face with pizza like he was about to be executed (he realized on his first bite that he hadn’t eaten since before they saw Zach). 

Julian, perched on an arm of the couch, loudly smacked on his second slice a couple times in thought. “Chris, I thought you’d said you didn’t even really like this series anymore.”

“You like it, Jules!” That sounded genuine, it warmed Mason’s heart a tad. “And also good ass fuckin’ views.” Chris’ dopey, sarcastic wink and smile was practically audible. 

“Yeah, fair,” Julian mumbled through his third slice. 

They all stayed in relative silence for a few more minutes, the quiet only broken by chewing noises and the occasional swear out of Chris as he kept trying to set everything up. Mason looked around the new apartment. It was a normal, shitty LA place, one main room and one side bedroom. The front door led them to the living room, and the kitchen was only separated by a half bar that looked like it had lived through Hiroshima. The bedroom looked like it had just a king sized bed and a bathroom. It was all still surprisingly clean for one guy living on his own, but it had only been a week or two at best. Not enough time to build up grime just yet. 

Chris made some kind of exclamatory noise, jumped back a bit to look at the screen. Mason craned his body around Chris pointedly, but he didn’t seem to notice. The PS2 flickered to life. OBS booted up on the laptop. It all seemed to be working. 

Chris spun around. “Funny time, boys.”

“Mic,” Mason said. He wasn’t letting another recording be ruined by not having the mic plugged in. 

“Fuck, yeah, thanks man.”

“Anytime. I’m the mic boy, that’s me name,” Mason smiled, doing a little warm up voice for the video. Julian laughed quietly above him. Mason turned up to catch his eye, patted the couch next to him. Julian walked around and sat, cramming his last bit of pizza into his mouth. 

Chris turned around to sit after he started the game and audio recording. “Aw, come on, you two took the good side already?” He laughed a couple times, letting himself fall into the remaining couch space. 

“You’re fine, ya big baby. We left you a whole third of the couch,” Mason said as he grabbed the controller off the table for Julian. 

“More like an eighth.” Chris rolled his eyes, but his smile didn’t break. 

Mason was glad they were all friends like this. He scooted the mic towards himself while Julian started flipping through menus to get the game up. He settled back in the couch, reminded himself to not criticize the game as much since the comment section wouldn’t stop dragging him over how much he apparently did that. That critique got to him, as much as the other two guys told him to ignore it.

Y’know... This was a nice night, he decided. 

He fucking prayed it’d all stay nice, even with his half baked plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now it’s midnight lol, ive gotta work on not getting distracted. thank you sm sm sm for the feedback on da first chapter, it fr made my night <3 
> 
> leave a comment, leave a kudos, have a nice rest of ur day :D
> 
> //revised bits of this 3/1/20, bc i realized that The Best Gamers streams had zach in them too. wooo why do i try to make this fit a timeline this much


	3. verbal thoughts, mental actions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> flashback chapter, baby B)

_[2010]_

“God, that stream was shit,” Chris grumbled into his hands, “we can’t get away from those fucking 11 year old gremlins.”

“Jesus fucking Christ man! That one fucking kid wouldn’t stop joining and joining and joining!” Zach’s face cam finally flicked on, and Chris couldn’t help but smile a bit. That crusty fucking laptop webcam barely could show him and he practically moved at 3fps, but fuck Chris still liked seeing him.

Chris snorted. “How’d he even have that many accounts!! We’d kick one and there’d be like.. five others all lined up!”

“He kept asking the same little question too— I don’t get it!! Each fucking time, it was-“

“Are you two GAY yet??” The two bellowed in sync, Chris barely able to finish the phrase before laughter spilled over and he fell forward onto his desk. He could hear Zach laughing his ass off when he stopped to breath in. He liked Zach’s laugh a shit ton. He made himself laugh harder to stop thinking about it. 

“Ohhh,” Zach breathed out, tinges of giggles still in his voice, “that was so fucking bad.”

Chris wheezed for a second. “Worst goddamn stream.”

Zach grinned. “Absolute worst.”

Chris exhaled, the laughs finally leaving his system. But immediately he felt tiredness hit him like someone had slammed him into a school desk. A quick glance back up at the screen showed Zach reflected the same feeling, his friend yawning hard and rubbing at his eyes. Chris yawned too. 

“Jesus, what fuckin time is it...” Zach trailed off, squinting at his screen. He squinted for way too long before sighing and fumbling around his bed for his glasses.

Chris glanced down and sighed. “Fuck me man, it’s 7.”

“That means it’s.. 2am.” Zach looked dead tired.

Chris looked behind himself. His bed looked like fucking nirvana. “Alright you filthy animal, it’s your bed time.”

Zach smiled a bit. “Yeah. When’s your flight tomorrow again?”

“Uh... Departure at 5AM for a 13 hour flight. I think that puts me in Cali at like, fuckin’, 1PM.” He rubbed his face, anticipating jet lag already.

“Aw, little baby doesn’t like flights.” Zach yawned as he spoke. 

“Fucking prick. Get some goddamn sleep, wouldya?”

“Mwah.”

Chris hung up Skype before he could think.

The plane dinged, and Chris snapped to focus like he got jumpscared. God, he wished he could sleep on planes. The pilot’s grating ass voice mumbled over the speakers that everyone needed to stay in their seats as they landed. 

Fucking finally. His legs creaked like he deserved the early bird special when he stood. He shuffled behind everyone, pulling out his phone and silently begging it to find a signal. It was 1:01PM. Fuck timezones. He stumbled out the fucking plane and funneled into the nearest luggage claim area.

His beg was answered, when he received the single text, “late,” from Zach. Sent 1min ago.

Chris snorted. 

“sry cudnt flap arms fast enuf,” he slammed into his keys, shoving the phone into his hoodie pocket to go look for his bag. Thank fuck he got a bright color one, no one else dared reach for his bright ass hot pink suitcase. He pulled it down and backed up, checking his phone again. 

“whr r u,” Zach had sent 2mins ago. “bag claim, 53. wht r u wearing,” Chris sent back. “ur mom,” Zach immediately replied. chris rolled his eyes and turned around to look for his friend. 

He saw zach. They locked eyes. 

Oh my God, it’s him. 

They walked towards each other in a goddamn trance. Chris’ heart started quaking at a solid 200bpm. ‘What do I do, do I hug him, do I high five, do I just stand here and stare at him, I could do that for hours wait w—‘

Zach shut out his thoughts by hugging him. Tight and long.

Chris hugged back, just as hard. He never wanted it to end. 

“I— I do NOT trust you driving,” Chris’ stomach already hurt from laughing, “I don’t think you can reach the fucking pedals!”

Zach got out a solid ‘ha ha’ before he screwed up his face and stamped his little foot on the ground. “I’m five-foot-eleven you tall ass piece of fucking crap!!”

“You’re a fucking hobbit—!”

“No I’m NOT!!” Zach’s final screech broke the fucking sound barrier before he cracked and laughed again. Chris felt everyone in a five meter radius dart their eyes over, but he was too busy wheezing and trying to get tears out of his eyes to care much. Christ, it was so much better hearing Zach’s broken, angelic voice in person.

They finally got to Zach’s car. Chris had to delicately origami himself just to get inside. Zach smirked at him. “That took a million years, you tiny giraffe.” Chris rolled his eyes, pushed at his arm lightly. 

Zach got the car started and started making his way out of the goddamn LAX parking lot. “No one knows how to fucking drive, I swear I’ll.. I’ll melt these guys.” He started tapping his steering wheel in frustration.

“Hey, don’t you call me no one!” The “:(“ emoji was practically audible in Chris’ voice. 

“I’m melting you now?”

Chris smiled. “With your smooth talkin’, ya sure are.” Please let that land, please let that land, please let that land. 

Zach cracked a smile (it landed!). “Aw, so you can feel emotions!” 

“Whahahat!! How’s that— YOU’RE the psychopath in this relationship!”

“I am not!!” Zach was holding back laughter hard. It looked cute. What. 

“You know you are!! You- You’d swerve this fuckin’ car at a 3 year old on a trike just to see how he’d react!”

“BUT THAT’D BE FUNNY!!”

Chris was laughing at that for the next minute straight. 

After a few more jokes, Zach was barely any closer to the goddamn exit. Chris felt his friend glancing at him every so often, but told himself that he couldn’t have been since why would he be doing that. 

“Dude, and I thought I was a shitty driver,” Chris mused when Zach stole a look (no, he couldn’t have) and swerved a bit. “You’re driving like you’re tripping on the pedals.”

Zach laughed. “You’ve got no room to talk! Oh, eugh, I’m Chris O’Neill, I got in a car accident the first time I started driving, mnn.”

“Sh-shuddup!! I was like, 14!” Chris grinned as he put as much fake-hurt into his words as possible. 

“Yeah, well, I didn’t fucking break a whole vehicle as soon as I could get in one!”

“I didn’t break a car! I hit a couple mailboxes, that’s it!!”

Zach giggled. “Eugh I’m Chris O’Neil. I— I destroy property and I’m too gay to drive eeuuugh.”

Chris scrunched up his face, holding back laughter. “I’m not fuckin’ gay!! And it was just.. four...”

Zach whipped over to look at him. “FOUR?!”

“THAT’S NOT—“

“CHRIS, FOUR IS NOT A COUPLE!!”

“FINE!!! FOUR, MAYBE FIVE!!”

“HOW DO YOU MESS UP THAT FUCKING BAD ON YOUR FIRST DAY, CHRIS!?”

“I DON’T KNOW!!!” He couldn’t breathe.

They were (finally) away from LAX and at the hotel. Zach got the two of then checked in, nearly dropping the key. (Cuteass dork. No. Shut up.) Chris pretended to not notice the eyebrow raise that the front desk lady gave the two of them as they headed for the elevator. 

Zach led the way to their room. Chris followed behind, overwhelmed by how the whole place looked. All tans and earth tones from the 70s, all green and brown carpet. The wall decor, if you could even call it that, looked like someone just diarrhea-shat on some canvases and stuck frames on top. Cracks trailed across the off-white popcorn ceiling. Fluorescent lights pulsed and whirred in a slow, purgatorial death. Cooked cockroach corpses were caught in the cavities; Chris looked away from them quickly before too many shivers went down his back. Half of the hallway seemed to shake every time one of the two rickety elevators ascended and descended. Dust bunnies rose around his legs with each footfall. It all felt anxious and oppressively gross. All in all, it truly was a shit-price hotel. 

Zach finally found their room after the hallway had stretched for what felt like a mile. He pushed the key in the lock, turned it upside down a couple times, then shouldered the door open. Their room was all dark greens and wood paneling, one queen-ish sized bed to the right with God knows how many bugs inside. A cot stuck out from the wall like it was one of those ironing tables. Chris walked up to it while Zach went to put down his bags. He pushed on it with one hand and felt a spring break inside the mattress immediately. Practically could taste the rust, eugh. 

“Dude! Look at this shit, it’s fuckin’ disgusting!” Zach’s voice called from the bathroom. Chris dropped his bag and felt his stomach start preparing to throw up as he made his way over to the bathroom. 

The pinkish-tan excuse of a linoleum countertop was coated in a layer of visible grime. The sink had rust marks everywhere the water had touched the sides, the handles were stained and strangely yellowed, and the faucet had shit collected along the nozzle. The toilet was sized for a preschool classroom, and the floor surrounding it sure looked like the previous occupant was actively being potty-trained. The shower was crammed in the corner, the glass vaguely frosted and the shower head maybe five and a half feet from the ground. Chris’ back hurt looking at it. The towels shoved onto the unsanded shelves had a distinct moldy smell lingering around them. 

Zach turned back to look at Chris. Chris could not stop looking at the fucking bathroom. “How much did we pay for this place?”

“Fuckin’... 60 or so dollars a night?”

They both groaned. 

Zach looked behind him at the beds. “I guess I’ll take the c—?”

“No.” Chris spoke a lot faster than he meant to. Fuck, play it cool. “No,” he said slower, “that fucker’s about to break.”

Zach gave him a look. “We gonna share the bed then?”

Chris felt his face fucking heat up against his will. “Yeah. Guess so.”

Zach avoided his eyes. He went over to the window, carefully pulled open the centuries-old curtains while touching them as little as possible. Sunlight streamed in through the dirt-covered window, illuminating every single speck of dust in the room. Holy shit, that’s a lot of dust. Chris made a mental note to clean his room when he got back home. 

Chris coughed, feeling dust starting to coat his throat. “Should we like... I’unno, open the window and turn on the fan? Try and get this shit hole a little better?”

“Yeah, yeah, good idea,” Zach mumbled, half to himself, as he yanked the window open with a shove and a squeak from the hinges. Chris walked to the fan, pulled on the strings until it hummed into action. It went from slow to fucking plane speeds in a few seconds. At least it worked. 

The two just looked around for a minute, still taking it all in. Zach was the first to break the silence this time. “Y’wanna spend as little time in this room as possible?”

“Fuck yeah,” Chris said. 

“Let’s go to Curry House first.”

And with that, they left the room. 

A fog started to fill Chris’ brain as they walked down the thousand-mile hallway again. He trailed behind Zach as they rode down to the lobby. He yawned as they walked out the main doors, following along as Zach hailed them a cab (“Odds are that we do dumb shit later, and I’m not letting either of us fuckin’ drive if we do,” was his reasoning). Zach climbed in first, but as soon as Chris sat down he felt jet lag hit him like a gut punch. He hoped their drive was long. He didn’t even get a word out to Zach that he was fucking tired before he fell asleep.

It felt like ten minutes had passed when Zach poked him awake, practically pulling him by his arms out the cab. He stumbled to his feet and stood on the edge of the sidewalk, useless and disoriented, while Zach payed the cab driver. His friend waved a hand in front of his eyes, snapped his fingers a couple times. Chris, blinked harder a couple times, focused his eyes down at Zach. “How long wazzi sleepin’?”

Zach rolled his eyes with a small smile, glanced at his watch. “Half an hour. It’s 4:14.”

“‘N we’re inhwere?”

“Little Tokyo. Next to Curry House.”

“‘Kay,” Chris mumbled. Sure enough, a place called Curry House stood to his right. He was still trying to blink away sleep fog as he followed Zach inside. 

One thing led to another, and they went from Curry House (Chris nearly burned his mouth off, he swore it) to a Chinese place, to an actual bar, to another bar by midnight. Chris was having a great ass time. Zach still had his fake ID from high school, and Chris had enough scruff on his chin that he passed for 25. They finally got kicked out of the last bar because Chris nearly got in a fist fight with some group of some 40 year old regulars who’d called the two of them fags. He got shoved out onto the sidewalk, still hurling insults. 

The world threatened to spin around Chris as he regained his balance. Zach got thrown out soon after he did, his friend nearly pushing him over. Chris caught him in his arms, holding him while they both screamed at the door before it closed. They remained in that position, Chris holding Zach, Zach leaning against him, for a couple more minutes, before Zach giggled a bit. Chris started to laugh along. He didn’t know why, but shit it was funny all of a sudden. 

Zach eventually pushed himself to his feet somewhat and turned around to look at Chris, but kept his hands tightly gripping onto his arms. Zach looked up at him, a dumb smile plastered across his flushed face as his eyes lazily met Chris’.

“Fuck, you’re hot,” Chris thought. He got confused when Zach reacted to his thought. Wait. 

WAIT. Holy fuck, he didn’t think that did he. He said that. Out loud. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck f—

“Yeah?” Zach’s voice was hushed now, gentle. It made Chris feel fuzzy and warm inside. 

Chris felt sheer, total embarrassment. He bit his tongue so he wouldn’t spill any of his other deeply repressed thoughts. Were they deeply repressed? He fucking sure as hell wished they were. 

Zach spoke, looked him up and down, smirked. Chris didn’t process his words until seconds after he heard them, but when he recognized them as English it hit like a fucking train:

“You’re fucking hotter.”

“Wwwhat?”

“Y’heard me,” Zach stepped in so that their chests were starting to press together. The physical contact stirred up an emotion inside Chris. “You’re. Hotter.”

“Are y’just sayin’ this ‘cuz you’re drunk, Zach..?” His Irish accent started to slip in harder, he couldn’t hold it back at this point. He was thinking about too much Zach.

“I’ve been thinking it forever, y-y’know,” Zach whispered in a tone that drove Chris nuts already, sliding his hands to Chris’ shoulders now, leaning close enough that their faces could almost touch, “but now I’m sayin’ it.”

Chris blinked slowly. His brain processed. “Tha’s cool.” 

“‘S that all you’re gonna say..?”

Chris blinked again. “I mean, ‘ve been thinkin’ it, t-too. This’ssss... lot less awkward now.”

“Then... this won’t be awkward, either.”

Zach gripped at his shirt collar tightly. The sudden force tilted Chris closer to his face. Then, before he could think, he felt something on his lips. 

He felt... Zach’s lips. On his lips. 

Fuck, it was better than everything he’d possibly dreamed of.

Zach broke contact first. His face was bright red under the flickering street lights. His goddamn gorgeous eyes looked into Chris’ soul and asked if he could keep going.

Chris answered by tightly holding Zach’s face in his hands and leaning in for the kiss himself. Zach pulled him in closer, then moved his hands to behind Chris’ neck. The feeling sent a sharp, fucking pleasant shiver down his back. He kissed him harder. He felt Zach’s lips, his tongue, him. Fuck. It was perfect. 

They broke the second kiss softer, held each other’s faces close so their foreheads rested together. Chris was fucking euphoric. 

They heard a cab approaching. Zach shifted back a bit and Chris immediately wanted him back. He slung one arm across Chris’ shoulders and used his other one to wave down the cab. Chris moved his hands down to Zach’s waist, feeling out for wherever a good spot could be. He had no fucking idea what to do. 

The cab stopped next to them. Zach got the door for Chris, then closed it behind them. Zach said the hotel name, the driver sighed at the distance but shifted the car into drive anyways. Chris saw him glance back at the two of them, how they were holding onto each other, and could almost see his brain thinking.

The cab driver closed the glass divider between him and the back and started driving. Zach fucking dove onto Chris. 

He barely had time to react before Zach had his hands pinned above his head. He held his wrists in one hand, grabbed Chris’s neck with the other as he pulled him up into another kiss. He didn’t notice Zach’s hand move off his wrists until it was down at his waist, snaking under his shirt. Zach found a spot and squeezed at his side, and Chris couldn’t hold back the noise he immediately made. 

But one sober thought crossed his drunk fuck mind, and he broke the kiss and put one hand on Zach’s face. Zach leaned back, confusion trying to go across his face. 

“W-Wait? ‘Till we’re at th’hotel?” Chris slurred out.

Zach thought. “Yeh.” He moved off Chris.

Chris sat up, leaning against the corner between the seats and the car door. He moved his legs to stretch across Zach’s lap some, and maybe he kept one in a strategic position. Zach settled into it.

He smiled some at Chris. Chris smiled back.

A few minutes later, the cab arrived at the hotel. Chris all but fell out the door. Zach clambered out behind him after he shoved some cash through the divider to the driver. The cab sped away. 

The two stumbled through the lobby, Zach holding Chris’ hand close to himself and marching him to the elevators. Chris managed to wink at the front desk lady. She nodded. 

The elevator was painfully slow. The hallway never ended. He just wanted to get in their room. Get on their bed. 

Zach shoved the key in the lock fucking hard. Chris couldn’t stop himself from muttering, “Do that t-to me, God.”

Zach winked at him, grinned, grabbed him by the fucking shirt again, and shoved him inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah sry i chickened out. its 3am im not continuing that scene rn haha. pls leave feedback!! i havent written sexual tension since last year im rusty
> 
> also dis was a chris pov! i tried!! the next flashback will probbbb be zach woooo
> 
> have a nice rest of ur day :DD


	4. crashing vitriol

Julian and Mason giggled and parroted some of Zach’s jokes from the night before as they waited for Chris to show up for recording. They were stuck on the distressed-villager-monkey bit for a while. Chris buzzed in, the noise sounding like he hit the button a couple more times than usual, but Julian got up to open the gate nonetheless. He grabbed a couple Monsters from the fridge while he was up. They had to record a bunch of Crash Twinsanity that night, God knew they’d need energy—

Two huge fucking knocks berated their front door and interrupted Julian’s thoughts. He looked at Mason, Mason looked back at him. “Did we let in someone else,” he saw Mason mouth.

They both approached the door in trepidation, Mason hesitating to open it. Julian seized up the courage to grab the handle and pulled it open. Hopefully this wouldn’t be a murderer. 

Chris stood on the other side. Yay, not a murderer. 

“Your stream yesterday, huh?” 

Scratch that, he might be a murderer. 

Julian felt the mood change in a snap at that sentence. Everything felt cold and unsure, except for Chris. He was practically radiating heat and anger. He couldn’t see the way-taller-than-he-was man’s hands through his hoodie pocket, but judging by his posture, Chris was ready to fucking swing. Julian truly understood that anime trope of shading the skin around people’s eyes when they’re mad. 

Mason took a small step back. “Y-Yeah, the stream.” 

Chris pushed through the both of them with a low hum and walked inside, knocking into their shoulders with deliberative force. He went straight for their fridge, dug around for a second, and pulled out a beer bottle. “How come you streamed with. Him.” Jesus fuck, the way he spat out that last word made hair stand on the back of Julian’s neck. 

“Well, um, uh,” Mason started, face slowly beginning to fill with panic, “we, uh, we um.”

Chris didn’t seem to even care for an answer, considering he started chugging the beer as soon as Mason had opened his mouth. He finished it in fucking seconds, shoved the bottle into his hoodie pocket, and grabbed another. 

After that rough ass start, the night continued... surprisingly well. They recorded enough bullshit for a few videos, that was a plus. Chris had loosened up over the hours of gameplay, though Julian couldn’t tell if it was just for the video or not. The beginning of the video might end up sounding tense as hell, but the rest hopefully sounded like nothing was wrong. Chris got the files copied over and saved on Rodrigo’s USB stick like usual. The three got up from the couch, stretched a bit. Chris beelined for their fridge again. 

Julian looked at Mason. Mason just shrugged. Neither were too worried; he’d either pass out on their couch for the night or bus home, nothing unusual. 

Chris came back and fell across the couch. The couch was smallish enough, and the guy was lanky and dramatic enough, that he had his head resting on one arm and his legs still sticking over the other. He popped open another beer. “So. Th’ stream.”

Julian paled, he’d really hoped they could just ignore it. He saw Mason get visibly anxious. The two moved around from the back of the couch, Mason opting to sit on their dinky little coffee table and Julian on the floor. 

“The stream,” Mason echoed, voice hollow. 

Chris took a long sip. “How come?”

“Hm?”

“How come him?”

Mason looked down as he thought. 

Julian weighed the options in his head. Either they lie to Chris and say that Zach reached out himself, or tell the truth and say that they reached out to him. Chris wouldn’t buy the first, and he’d eviscerate them for the second. 

So naturally, he chose the third option: Distract. “Why’s it such a big deal?”

Chris sat up sharply, stared straight at Julian. “Really? Y’re askin’ that?”

Julian took a deep breath, steeled himself. “Yeah, I am, Chris. You haven’t explained why you hate him. If he’s just an ex, why’s it such a big deal?”

“Because friends. Don’t pal up with their friend’s exes.” Chris’ earlier rage was returning, bubbling under the surface. Julian couldn’t tell if it was hot or cold anger yet, and the unsurity scared him. 

Mason seemed to get what stunt Julian was trying to pull. “He’s not just your ex, Chris. We were sort of friends with him too.”

“Those Best Gamers streams meant fuckin’ nothing,” he spat out, “they just happened. You weren’t friends.”

“W-We kinda were,” Julian muttered. “I’ve spoken with him a couple times since, and I know Mason Skyped with him and some others a couple times.”

“You weren’t. Fuckin’. Friends.” The way Chris spoke, the assured tone and biting delivery, spun Julian’s head a bit. He finished his bottle. “I know him well enuff.”

Mason didn’t seem as affected as Julian felt. “Chris, I think we can decide for ourselves if we counted as friends.”

“I— You don’t get it, I fucking made him. He was MINE. I know him. I know who he’d fucking count as friends.”

Mason matched Chris’ glare with a slight smirk. “Clearly you don’t.” 

“And fucking how’s that.” 

“If you made him, you wouldn’t have broken up.”

Chris sat up. Fast. He swiveled his legs so that they practically touched Mason’s. Julian felt genuinely scared. But Mason refused to flinch. 

“Take that back.” Chris’ hands were clenched tight around the empty bottle. He was shaky.

Mason just blinked slowly. “Fess up what happened, then.”

This was the angriest Julian had ever seen Chris. He was fucking scared that he’d break his bottle over Mason’s head any second now. 

“I have my goddamn fuckin’ rights. I don’t gotta.”

“You’re not even a citizen.” Jesus, Mason.

Chris leaned in closer, getting into Mason’s face. “We broke up, and you don’t gotta know why.”

Mason looked to the side in mock thought. “Maybe... Maybe if I knew, I’d never talk to him again. If he’s as bad as you act, then hell, I wouldn’t wanna keep him as a friend.”

Holy shit, he... Julian loved his fucking genius so much.

Chris’ expression faltered, some anger fading from his face as he thought about that statement. He leaned back in the couch. Crossed his arms tight. “If I tell ya some shit, you’ll drop him?”

Mason shrugged. And that half-affirmation seemed to be enough for Chris. 

“We...” he trailed off with a huff. Put the bottle down on the couch, sunk back into the couch more, rubbed at his face. “We... fuck... got in a stupid argument. I was bored with the damn relationship, he was too, but neither of us would fucking say it. Fucker never apologized for what he did say, though. Called me self-absorbed, toxic, the shit I hadn’t heard since Ireland. And he damn well knew that. Fuck. Him.” 

Julian noticed that Chris had the same pattern Zach had held a few days ago. Pain crossed his face while he spoke, he spoke like he was keeping his voice from cracking at every second, and he progressed from vitriol to a resolved sourness. His composure seemed held together by straws though, compared to Zach, ready at any minute to snap into either total anger or total depression. 

Chris coughed. “I want th’ bastard back. I fucking do. But, I am NOT fucking talkin’ until he says he’s sorry.”

Mason frowned in contemplation. “What... what did you argue over?”

Chris snorted. “Small, stupid shit. I raised a complaint, n’ he fuckin’ scaled it all up like he always does.” His face screwed up. “Went from him not doin’ the dishes a week straight to... t-to me being a controlling, manipulative, narcissistic, gaslightin’ sonovabitch.”

That last phrase hung heavy in the air. Mason was staring at the floor. Julian didn’t know what to say. Sure, Chris seemed like he had some of those habits, but it wasn’t a... constant, unbearable thing. The guy just needed assurance to feel safe, it was understandable. But he wasn’t a narcissist, not with this much regret.

“I. I hope I’ve changed. If that all really was the c-case.” Chris’ voice was starting to shake against his will. “I t-tried to change. I’ve always been kinda scared I’m a narc, that f-fucking hurt the most.”

“...I think you have changed,” Mason muttered softly. “I wouldn’t call you that stuff now.”

“Me neither,” Julian confirmed. 

Chris refused to look at either of them. “He doesn’t think I‘ve changed. I fuckin’ know it. Unforgiving, unrelenting, primordial excuse of a human.” He cut himself off, scaling back his anger himself for the first time. “Jus’ want him to forgive me. Think I’d feel better.” He was barely audible now through the low volume, sorrow, and residual anger. 

Mason nodded. He glanced at Julian, mouthed “there goes plan A.”

Julian nodded. “Hey Chris..?”

Chris looked over at him, face unreadable. 

“We won’t stream with him. Ever again. Until he gets over it.” That wasn’t gonna be a lie. 

Chris smiled sadly, looked away again. “Hope you’re ready for ‘n eternity.”

Mason sighed a laugh. “We’re ready.”

Chris stayed hunched over for a minute. Julian and Mason sat in awkward silence as he thought. He sniffled then sat back up again, wiping at his eyes before taking a deep breath. “I-I should get back to my place, yeah?”

“If you wanna crash there tonight, it’s fine,” Mason said.

Chris grinned. “‘Kay.” Then flopped onto his side. He was out in seconds. 

Mason stood up like he had the legs of a newborn deer. Julian got up too. They both looked at each other, sighed. 

“Guess we gotta force it,” Mason muttered, solemn, looking at Chris. “I didn’t wanna, I was hoping one of them would be more likely to give in.“

Julian nodded. “This shit’s gonna play out like a $8 YA novel.”

He saw Mason grin out of the corner of his eye before he giggled. “I mean, it’s gotta work if they all do it, right?” 

“God, I hope.”

They stood in silence for a moment. Mason went and got a blanket, then threw it over Chris. Julian carefully shoved a pillow under his head. The two turned off the TV and the lights, locked the front door, and retired to their room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (heads up, ive edited some of the previous chapters some to make dis one make sense aa!! made it so that zach did know dd&j, that the streamed on wednesday instead of two weeks later (bc ive gotta get them all friendly by oct 4, 2017- should i post a calendar?), small timeline shit like that. i swear im this close to physically making a timeline so i can keep this all in me head haha)
> 
> finally, i finished one before midnight!! now i can sleep :)) im working out the pacing of the next few chapters in my head, trying to choose between some narrative slow burn or getting straight to the fun action. (spoiler alert: im probably choosing slow burn.) im also deciding whether i wanna do any actual nsfw. if i do, ill prob just upload it as a second, supplementary work. i dont like forcing pure smut down ppls throats (but it is fun to include foreplay!).  
> expect a flashback chapter next, i cannot WAIT to write from zach’s pov im VIBRATING
> 
> i wish i could share the mess of a playlist im crafting for this fic, i’ll loop songs for fuckin forever writing chunks of this lmaoo
> 
> thanks for reading, have a nice rest of ur day heehee


	5. more than one first

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more flashbacks, boys, woooowowowowowoowowoo B))

The first time they talked to each other out loud was in 2008. He was all Zach could fucking think about. 

They’d Skyped because they both had the program and they both wanted to make an animation together. Chris had asked for some voice lines. Zach tried to speak as little on call as fuckin’ possible. No one online knew that his voice was just “like that,” as so many people had put it before. And from what little he’d talked to him, he didn’t wanna just be another person to be made fun of. 

But, of course Chris dropped the bomb: “Man, fuckin’ speak up. If we’re gonna use each other’s voice lines, I wanna know what you at least sound like.”

Exactly everything he wished he hadn’t said. Shit. No other way to say it, than just going, “It’s nothin’ you haven’t already heard.”

Chris giggled, but... it didn’t seem mean-spirited. “Fair. That’s just your voice?”

“...Maybe?”

“‘S neat. I’m payin’ for you to get a new fuckin’ mic though, I’m doing it.”

Zach let out a couple laughs in surprise. “What!! Like yours is any better!”

“Man, you ALREADY sound like Flash compressed you!!” Chris was full on laughing now, and it was cute as fucking hell. 

“I—“

“I am getting you a mic! I do not care! I refuse to use your fuckin’ bullshit two-euro mic!”

Zach couldn’t help but laugh too, in disbelief and relief that Chris hadn’t made fun of him. 

A couple days passed. Zach had sent him the voice lines the night before, but he’d fallen asleep before Chris got a chance to hear. He woke up the next morning to just see the reply message, “FUCK no.” He rolled his eyes but couldn’t hold back a smile

dont be a baby its just audio

-DUDE I literally can’t hear you  
over the sand you’re pouring  
down the mic the whole time

sry thats just the dust from my  
lungs

my bad

-Get that checked out

the doctor just poured more in

he called me his little landfill  
then shoved his fist up my ass

-I mean... was it ur prostate  
exam orrrrrr 

ye

-Then why was their dust

bc im his little landfill

-Shut up haha

A week later, and Chris had actually followed up on his word. Zach now had a mic that he didn’t get at Walmart, for once. So of course he called Chris as soon as he set it up. 

Chris picked up after the Skype dial tone had looped a few times. “Th’ fuck..?”

Aw, shit. Zach looked down at the time. It was nearly 9pm, which meant in Ireland it was... uh... close to 2 for Chris. “Aw, shit. I forgot what time it was for you, ‘m sorry. Get back to s—“

“Nah nah nah, wait,” Chris muttered, a sleepy smile growing in his voice, “I hear that mic difference.”

“O-Oh, yeah. I can do this now,” then Zach slapped the mic hard. He’d tested it minutes before, it made a huge ass bass noise. 

He heard Chris physically recoil. “CHRIST, man— I had my headphones maxed!!”

Zach giggled. Chris laughed too, unwilling at first. 

“Anyways, if you’re fucking done with that,” Chris’ end made shuffling noises, he was probably moving and sitting up, “I wanna hear you keep talkin’ now. Old mic did you zero justice, man.”

Zach felt his face heat up. “The hell do you want me to say?”

“Anythin’.” Chris sounded like he was fucking grinning. Smug, cuteass bastard.

Zach stuttered. “Uh- fuck, where’s the one you sent.”

“Which one? Fresh Prince or—“

Zach cleared his throat far too much. Dramatic overreading time, oh yeah, epic. “You've got to help me, I've done something horrible. I caught my girlfriend with my best friend. I got—“ He had to take a second to stifle giggles, already hearing Chris breaking. “I got s-so furious, I slit their throats with my pocketknife. Then, I— I buried the two bodies and my mom got scared and said, ‘Y-You're moving with your auntie and uncle in Bel-Air,’ I—“ Zach couldn’t fucking finish it. Chris’ painfully suppressed barks of laughter made Zach laugh way too fucking hard, oh my God. 

Chris sniffled. “Holy shit, t-trying to be quiet just made me fucking cry.”

“I’ll make you cry any time, babe,” Zach managed to get out through his own silent wheezes. Wait. Fuck. Was that too far?

Chris laughed louder, then Zach heard an audible clap as Chris probably slapped his hand over his mouth. 

“Fuck man, I could listen to y’r crisp voice all day, but I should prob’ly go back t’ sleep now before I wake my parents up.” Chris was still fucking laughing as he spoke. 

“Sorry for waking you up again. Thanks for the mic.”

“Any time, any time. Whatever you need.” Chris hung up. 

“Need you,” Zach muttered. Wait. Stop that. Chris probably didn’t even like guys like that. Stop thinking he does. Fuck. Why did he even like him, he wasn’t like his type before at all. 

At least Chris didn’t treat him like the others had. 

The first time they talked face-to-face was in 2010. Zach never wanted to stop looking at him. 

Zach knew he needed to keep his eyes on the road. He knew it, he knew it, he knew it. But god DAMN, he just wanted to look at Chris. The guy’s webcam played him so dirty, he looked... good. Jesus.

He dared to steal another glance at him for a couple seconds. Chris had shoved the car seat back as far as it could go and stuck his feet up on the dash, dramatic cunt. The guy only had a few inches on him, but he acted like he was the eiffel tower and Zach was the size of a porta-potty. He felt the car start drifting and snapped his focus back on the road. He kept fucking steering off every time he looked at Chris, he was praying so goddamn hard that it wasn’t noticeable. 

“Dude, and I thought I was a shitty driver,” Chris said. “You’re driving like you’re tripping on the pedals.”

A day later and Chris was asleep in his car. He’d complained about how tired and he felt, but finally gave in and passed out after just a few minutes driving. At least it gave Zach time to think. 

He’d been talking with this guy for... fuck, just 2 years? Felt like he’d known him since birth. They already knew so much about each other. 

Who knew what they were TO each other now, though. Still just friends? Or?? Zach decided he’d ask over dinner later. Maybe. Hopefully. Zach was the one with more experience on the relationship side of it all, and he knew that if he didn’t ask then they wouldn’t go anywhere. 

Chris had forced himself against it until now, clearly. He had talked about girls and shit before, did his best to sing their praises. He never had as much infatuation as their other friends did, especially Cory. (Zach had brought that up to him at one point, but Chris had explained it away with a simple, “That’s Cory, don’t compare him to anyone when it comes to tatas.”) Chris had talked mostly about the happy parts of the relationships he’d been in, and he briefly said that he usually ended up cutting ties and burning bridges when things didn’t work out. Zach had just stayed quiet and listened, kept vague about any stories that Chris asked about. 

Now though, they wouldn’t have to awkwardly tip-toe around feelings from years before. Zach had assumed he’d fallen for another little straight boy, but he was damn glad he held out hope. 

Chris shifted in his sleep, made a small noise. Zach couldn’t help but smile. 

The end of their stay arrived a week later with bittersweet sorrow. Chris had to catch his flight back to Ireland at fucking 4 in the morning, and Zach was flying a couple hours later to some family in Kansas. 

And Zach still hadn’t asked what they were together. 

The two rode a cab back to the airport, barely awake as Zach leaned up against Chris. A short burst of spring rain tapped on the windows, a rhythmic lullaby against the glass, and Zach was so close to falling back asleep. He felt safe, with his head against Chris’ shoulder and their hands laced together. Felt sorta happy. Felt grounded and stable for once. He could stay like that for hours in that cab, in the deep blue 3AM light, in the rain, in safe hands. 

But all good things come to an end. The cab reached an entrance, they had to clamber out and grab their bags, and Zach was almost sure Chris accidentally payed the driver in euro. They stumbled inside. 

They wandered for a while, neither wanting to get to Chris’ gate in any sort of hurry. Zach looked up at him a couple times while they trudged around. Rain clung to his messy, bedhead (cabhead?) hair in droplets. Color had rushed to his face in their scramble out of the cab, and the pink still hadn’t left his cheeks. His eyes were clouded with sleep and thought. Zach found it all cute. He always did. Chris just seemed to embody the word “cute.”

They found the terminal, all but fell into the chairs near by. Everyone around them was either reading something or asleep. It was all library-quiet. He felt like if he said one word too loud, then everyone around them would twist their necks around and yell “shh”’s at him.

Chris glanced at his seat number, then crumpled the ticket back in his pocket. He sighed. “Why’re my flights always this early, fuck me.”

“Dunno.” Zach struggled to think of something funny. “Are Irish people morning people?”

“Hell no,” Chris scoffed, “‘s always cloudy as fuck. We like sleeping in and shit.”

Zach thought for a second. “Could I come visit Ireland?”

“Of course, man. Please. I could show you around places and stuff. Just don’t expect to be excited all the time, it’ll prob’ly just be Wexford ‘n Dublin ‘n shit.”

Zach glanced at him, winked. “If you’re there, it’ll be exciting.”

Chris’ face flushed up, tired laughs escaped him from surprise and embarrassment. “Just don’t break my bed, whore. I like mine.”

“That hotel bed was already breaking! That doesn’t count.”

“And that motel we were at the next night, by the beach?”

“L-Look. I—“

An intercom buzzed: His terminal was boarding. Chris pushed himself up after a moment.

Zach grabbed his arm before he could go, though. He had to ask. He wasn’t asking over fucking Skype. “W-Wait.”

Chris turned back. “Hmuh?”

“What— uh,” Zach’s throat was working against his will, “what a-are we.” Chris stared at him, confused. “Relationship. What’re we,” he hope he clarified. 

Chris paused, thought. “I-I... I mean, from what’s happened, is it right to... to say..?” he pushed his hands together, locking up on his last word.

Zach understood. “Boyfriends..?”

“Yeah... Yeah, I think so.” Chris smiled softly. Zach smiled back. Fuck, he was happy. 

The intercom buzzed again, great cockblocker it had sure turned out to be. Chris jumped a bit, then quickly leaned in for a hug. Zach hugged back, squeezing as tight as he could. Chris squeezed too, and kissed Zach on the cheek as he pulled back. He waved as he took a few steps backwards, then turned around to go and board the plane. In a few seconds, he was gone. 

Heat blossomed on his face where Chris had kissed. He stood there, legs not able to move. 

Was it stupid to miss that fucker already?

2012 was the first time he saw Chris in person for more than a day or two again. It was the happiest he’d been in months. 

He’d saved up and packed the best he could for this trip, it was gonna be the longest time he’d ever been out of the US. He was gonna be there from September to... what, just before Thanksgiving? It was gonna be goooood. Chris was out of his parents house now, thank God. Still in Wexford, but at least they had privacy. 

This time around, Zach had to deal with the stupidly early flight: a 2am takeoff to land at 9pm, fucking hell. Now he got why Chris had griped so much about timezones on their trip a couple years back. Zach had crawled out of bed, gotten a bus ride to the airport, lumbered to his terminal. 

He got shocked awake for a moment when his phone started buzzing hard in his pocket. His put his shit down, pulled it out, answered the call without looking at the caller ID. “Th’ fuck?”

He heard his favorite giggle over the line. “Role reversal, eh?” Chris.

“Keep speakin’ and that sure as hell won’t happen.”

Chris pulled such a fake “aww” noise. “Fine, I’m taking it back!!”

“Good, bitch.”

“You just woke up, you got no right speaking like that,” Chris said with an audible shit-eating grin.

“I’ll take your rights.”

“As if. You’d be nothing without me.”

“Vice versa,” Zach said, then added a quick, “I hope.” 

“Heh, fair. Anyway, I was just checkin’ to make sure you didn’t sleep past the flight, ya dumbo. See ya in 12 hours.” Chris hung up.

Zach’s terminal dinged. He managed to get in his seat on the plane and fall back asleep before it even took off. 

The next several weeks were the best weeks Zach had ever had. Worked on more Hellbenders shit, Skyped some guys at Cartoon Network and Adult Swim, went on shitty tours around Ireland. Chris showed him some cool cliffs that they dived off before it got cold, showed him areas he’d gone to the most with friends, showed him his favorite restaurants and bars and stores. 

The highlight for Zach though was, honestly, the days they stayed home. Relaxed, made fun of Irish TV shows, talked, animated.

And the ultimate highlight was not having to sleep alone.

It was nice. 

The first time he truly felt jealous was in 2014. He was fucking furious. 

Chris, who was usually the overprotective one, had taken a short family trip back to Ireland. If it were just him and family, it’d be fine. 

But of course, of fucking course Niall went along with him. 

Zach couldn’t say a word, either. Niall was Chris’ friend, after all. It’d be a dick move to trash talk the two of them having fun in their home country. It’d be weird, too, to complain to any of their friends. Mick and Tomar were the only ones that really knew about him and Chris, though he could tell that Jon and Cory had started picking shit up. But he knew that if complained about Niall in any sort of way, even if it were as innocent as possible, he’d be the bad guy. He wouldn’t even want to complain normally, if Niall were just Chris’ friend. 

But they had started half-flirting with each other. 

It played off like a joke at first, a bit that Niall did some on Sleepycast sessions. He laughed, they all laughed. But Niall kept doing it, even off recording. Just little one-liner compliment shit with obvious fucking intent behind it. And Zach wouldn’t be as mad as he was if it were just Niall being like that— hell, he could probably just tell Niall that Chris was taken and it’d be over. 

But Zach was pissed, because Chris seemed to be reciprocating the feelings. 

He chalked it up to Chris just playing along with the bit at first. After all, he and Chris did that shit all the time. But Chris kept fucking playing along with it. When they were in sessions. When they were all out at restaurants. When they were just in the office. Chris kept toying with Niall, Niall kept toying with Chris.

Had Zach told Chris that it made him upset?

...Well, maybe not. 

But he thought that a baseline rule for relationships was “don’t flirt with other people.” He thought that was instinctual. And he was mad that Chris didn’t seem to think the same. So naturally, he cold-shouldered him while he was off in Ireland with his new boyfriend. Didn’t respond to texts until way after they were sent. Didn’t ask how his day was. He hoped that all sent the message that shit was up.

Chris came back, eventually. Nearly didn’t get to with visa bullshit, but he did. But instead of asking Zach what was wrong... he acted like nothing was unusual. 

What the fuck. 

Sure, Zach knew he was being passive-aggressive about it all, but that felt like too fucking much. Chris HAD to know nothing was fine, so why was he acting like it was?!

Zach thought about confronting him. He really did. But he never could bring himself too. Chris was stubborn as all hell — he’d told him that so many times he lost count — and Zach was too scared of his reaction. 

So Zach made himself pretend like nothing was wrong, too. 

And it went on like that for days. Zach slightly avoiding Chris while they were around each other, Chris not seeming to notice. Chris fucking being a whore around Niall. 

Zach just sat there stewing with all his thoughts bubbling around in his angry little brain. It’d hopefully be a nice, boiling, argument soup that he could pour on Chris eventually.

It evidently became too much for Chris, though, when Zach didn’t answer his texts for a day straight. Several times. They were living in the same damn apartment and Zach ghosted his texts. Hard. And today seemed to be the breaking point. 

That day, when Zach had driven them home in pure silence, he’d immediately stormed off into their bedroom and closed the door a bit harder than usual. 

Zach felt his stomach drop in preemptive fear. But he forced himself to play it cool and sit on the couch on his phone and wait. Maybe it was nothing, maybe Chris didn’t mean to close it that hard and he was just taking a shit in the bathroom. 

That proved to be a dead lie when Chris opened the door and rushed through it, then stood in front of Zach. His arms were crossed tight, all his weight was on one leg, his fingers were beating like drums into his sleeved. He was fully wound up. 

“Why the fuck don’t you answer my texts.”

Zach forced himself to look up slower than he wanted to. “Huh?”

Chris pulled out his phone, slammed in the password, checked his texts app. “I texted you, like, twelve fucking hours ago. About dinner for tonight. And you’re fucking sitting there on your phone and you haven’t. Fucking. Answered.” 

“Well, uhh,” Zach’s brain fumbled under pressure, “I guess I... didn’t see your text, sorry—“

Then Chris yanked Zach’s phone from his hands. He pressed the home screen button hard enough Zach was scared it’d break. He scanned it for second, then threw it on the bit of couch next to Zach. 

“You. Opened. It. You fucking opened the goddamn text.” 

Shit. 

“What the fuck has been WRONG with you recently?” Chris started pacing, which hopefully meant he wasn’t at his maddest yet— he was practically immobilized when at his worst. “You don’t answer me, you give me fuckin’ 2 word sentences at the office, we don’t talk before bed anymore. You’ve been fucking avoiding me ever since I got back from Ireland.”

Zach felt a spark reignite in his brain. “Maybe there’s a damn reason, Chris.”

Chris halted on the spot, spun on his heels to face him. His face was pure fucking contempt now. “And what the hell would that be.”

Zach’s earlier hot pot of rage soup was quickly chilling into a vague, expired, cold mush of fear. 

“WELL?” Chris didn’t like Zach not speaking. At all. 

Zach tried to clear his throat without it shaking. “Maybe all the time you fucking spend on Niall is taking your time from me, you cocksucker.” 

Chris just stared at him, first with anger, then with confusion. He let out one bitter laugh, then a couple. “What the fuck do you think me and Niall are.”

“Fucking constantly flirting, that’s what.”

“Jesus, Zach— that’s all a fucking joke!”

“Constantly?! Really! You do that shit with each other without a fucking camera in sight-“

“BECAUSE WE THINK IT’S FUNNY, YOU RETARD.”

Zach shut his mouth slowly. 

“IT’S A- It’s a fucking JOKE, Zach. We aren’t fucking serious. I’ve known him for God knows how long, he’s practically my weirdass brother. I’m not fucking attracted to him. Christ Almighty.”

Zach looked at the floor. Was it? Was it just a joke he didn’t fucking get? Did he get worked up over a joke? 

He could feel Chris staring at him, could feel anger still emanating off of him. “Why the fuck— ...Why didn’t you say anything about it?” 

Zach didn’t know what to say. 

Chris walked closer, Zach had to stop himself from flinching. “Scoot over, man.” He complied, and Chris fell into the space he’d made. 

They sat in silence for a moment. Zach still didn’t know what to say. Chris seemed to be trying to make himself simmer down. 

“I didn’t want you t’ be mad,” Zach finally got out. 

Chris sighed, short and frustrated, the sigh followed up by a stressed laugh. “So you waited ‘till I got mad enough to bring it up myself, instead.”

“...Guess so.” Fuck, he was stupid. 

They were both silent again. 

“Look, Zach,” Chris’ voice was soft now, still frustrated but now a touch more kind, “I don’t want this to be a pattern. If you’ve got an issue, fuckin’ say it. I’m not gonna bow down to this... this small signal bullshit anymore, ‘kay?” 

“‘Kay.” 

Chris let the silence sit again before he leaned against Zach for an awkward side-hug. Zach leaned back. 

“Sorry for not saying anything,” Zach said quietly. 

Chris chuckled. “‘S long as you don’t do it again, you’re fine.”

God, he hoped he’d never do it again. 

He did it again in 2015. And again. And again. He couldn’t get out of the cycle. 

Chris would do something that bothered him, he wouldn’t mention it but would get upset regardless, Chris wouldn’t notice at first, Chris would notice, Chris would get pissed off that he didn’t say shit, he would stay upset that Chris had yelled at him again, Chris would do something that bothered him, and on and on and on. 

He couldn’t stop doing it. He’d put off the inevitable for infinity if he could. It always got worse, every single time, but he kept fucking doing it because he thought things would be better if he didn’t start fights. 

The closest he ever got to a real fist fight was in 2015. Chris had yelled him into a corner again, had berated him into fessing up “this week’s problem.” Zach could practically feel his hands pummeling Chris’ face. All he did was push at the taller man’s chest and scream back some. 

That only made it all worse. 

The closest he got to breaking down irreversibility was in 2015. His bullshit self-made cage had encircle him and marked him for death. Chris came for his fucking heart like a vulture. They’d been together for so damn long, they knew exactly what to say and how to say it in order to tear each other down until one person caved. Zach was usually that person. Chris was too stubborn to let himself lose. 

Zach was stuck in this cycle. 

Chris left him with a bang. 

The closest he got to calling Chris back was in 2015. 

The closest he got to death was in 2015. 

The closest he got to being farthest away from everyone else was in 2015.

The first time he remembered how it really felt to be alone was in 2015.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (peep the chapter limit... i finally sat down and planned. we’re over halfway done, boys.)
> 
> apologies for the emotional wreck of a chapter this one turned into, i wrote across a night or two and this shit just became straight into self-callout haha
> 
> longest one yet, sorry if it’s too much!! i had to cut an unbelievable amount of things just to get here. too many possibilities
> 
> hope youre doing alright :,) have a nice rest of ur day, take care of urself


	6. spice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is.... the edgiest one yet.
> 
> i looped the black dresses cover of paper planes the whole time i wrote, check it out if you want to split your eardrums wide open in the best way possible  
> (plugging the link bc black dresses are... so gd underrated man wtf)  
> https://youtu.be/bIlLg_3Z4CQ

Mason was so god damn worried. 

This soap opera-level plot had a huge chance of going wrong. And, considering they didn’t live in a constructed narrative world, it probably was going to go wrong. The plan, in theory, shouldn’t be bad: Mason was bringing Chris to Curry House, and Julian would bring in Zach a bit later. Mason and Julian would tell their counterpart that the other couldn’t make it. They’d sit at separate tables. Mason would ask Chris to grab a refill for him, since he knew that Chris would get up to get one for himself anyways (“I’m a weak bitch with spice, and a thirsty bitch with life,” he’d quipped one day when Julian had pointed out his pattern). Zach and Julian would be sat right next to the soda machines. Julian would go to the bathroom before Chris could see him. Chris was observant enough that he’d see Zach and start a conversation, and hopefully not start a fight. Julian and Mason would monitor from a few tables away, and if all was well after a minute or two they’d approach them. All would be solved if they’d just talk to each other like grownups. 

If they started a fight..? Well. Mason just hoped they wouldn’t. And that’s why he was so god damn worried. If it were TV, they’d be fine. He really hoped they were in TV. 

But, the start of the plot was easy enough, and so he forced his worries down. Mason got himself and Chris to Curry House, got food, sat down. They’d eaten for a while before he got the text from Julian that he and Zach were there too. Mason looked up from his phone, and fortunately Chris was almost finished with his drink. He replied to Julian with a quick “hes coming.”

Chris stood up before Mason could even ask him to. “‘M gonna go get more,” he said, swishing his cup.

“Hey wait, gimme some too.” He pulled his best fake puppy-dog eyes. 

Chris rolled his eyes and laughed. “Fine, big baby. Sprite, too?”

Mason nodded, handed his cup over, then turned around in his seat to watch. Julian was ducking into the bathroom before Chris could know he was there. He could see Zach from where he was, thank God. He’d be able to watch the shit-show from a safe distance. 

Chris hummed under his breath as he walked. Two Sprites for two dummies. He wondered which one of them was the dummiest. Probably himself, considering he just used the word “dummiest” unironically. He popped the lids off, held them with his mouth by the straws as he refilled the drinks. He put the lids back on, thought about what he just did for a second, then got Mason’s cup a new straw. Yeah. 

He scanned the restaurant for a second as he turned around. A long line had formed since he and Mase had arrived, the kitchen was at their peak volume (he always found it funny when he could hear someone drop something and yell). People were filling up the seats: a couple families, a few couples, one of the huge booths in the back with a big ass group of surfer-looking guys. Pretty good crowd for a Saturday night. He kept looking for just a moment more. More couples, more people alone, m— 

Look at that table. What are the goddamn odds. 

What should he say? Should he even engage? He felt angry already. A rational bit of his monkey brain was telling him to not do shit, that it’d just get worse... the rest was screaming for blood. He liked screaming. 

He put down Mason’s drink and walked up to the table. “Hey, cunt.”

Zach jumped, looked up. His somehow still gorgeous face changed instantly from confusion to fear to fury. “What the hell are _you_ doing here.”

“Could ask the same.” He slurped loudly on his drink. Zach was seething, and Chris had only said, oh, fiveish words? God, he felt powerful. He made his posture appear as comfortable as possible. “‘M just here for good food.”

“Yeah.” Zach scowled into his cup for a moment. “Why the hell did you kiss Mason, you fucking freak?”

That stung a bit. “Hm, why did ya come to the party.”

“Don’t act like I wasn’t fucking part of Sleepycabin. I was invited, shithead.”

Chris turned those words over in his head, forced himself to level his tone. “Didn’t think anyone cared ‘bout ya anymore, figured you woulda cut ‘em off.”

Zach stood up quickly, his chair squeaking harsh against the floor. People were beginning to notice the anger simmering around the two. “Oh, now you’re projecting your own faults huh? Toxic manlet wants me to be the bad guy?”

“How th’ hell is that one of my faults, you—?!”

“The whole world can see your goddamn Twitter yet you always pull vaguepost bullshit to stir up drama,” he was starting to get into Chris’ space, people were turning around to watch, Chris could feel his face heating up, “don’t you think I don’t remember.”

Chris couldn’t hold back anger anymore. “You know damn well why I do that—“

“Get fucking therapy, then. I sure as hell can’t do it for you. Is that why we broke up? Because I couldn’t hold your problems for you?”

Chris bitterly remembered Zach yelling at him for talking about shit that bothered him, that made him upset, that made him uncomfortable. “I don’t need. Therapy.”

“We all do, Chrissy boy.” Zach smirked at the old nickname. Chris nearly punched him right there. 

“Don’t fucking call me that anymore.”

“You can’t control me like that now. I’m not easy. I’m fucking free.” Zach was just getting cocky instead of angry now. Chris didn’t notice anything happening around him now, it was all just Zach and his heartbeat. Like old times. 

Julian thanked the universe that Chris didn’t see him push open the door from the bathroom, jeez that thing had the loudest hinge. He saw the two standing there, saw Chris’ face starting to twist up in the same anger he saw last Thursday, and immediately searched for Mason’s table. His partner waved him down, then kept his eyes locked on the two. Julian rushed over. 

“How long’s it been?” He whispered, sliding into the booth seat next to him. 

“The whole time you were pissing,” Mason said into his hands. He looked anxious.

“That was a long piss, too.”

“Exactly.”

They both just watched in silence, in horror. Chris was getting angrier and quieter, Zach was getting louder and closer in his face. Just watching made Julian shudder from the tension. 

“Guess the plan didn’t work,” Mason said absently. 

Julian held back the urge to say he told him so. “Yeah.”

Fragments of sentences were now audible, the restaurant was getting quieter by the second with the more people that noticed the sparking fight. Chris’ voice was too low to be heard, but Zach was just a step away from yelling. From the looks of it, he was laying it into Chris. Julian was getting really worried now.

“How the hell did I even let you think you had control?” Zach was thinking at light speed every second, reevaluating everything in his entire life and searching for just the words that’ll hurt. Fucking payback. 

“I fucking. Did. You know it.” Chris’ voice was deadly quiet, his stupid fucking accent increasing exponentially. 

“Bullshit. How did you ‘make me’ like you always said, when I’M the one you FELL FOR, faggot?” He felt some sick sense of pride bubbling in his chest. “You thought you were fucking straight until you liked me. I MADE YOU. YOU WOULDN’T BE HERE, WITHOUT ME.”

“I-I— I.” 

Got him. 

Chris was trying to sort through that one in his pea brain, Zach could see the little cogs turning. “I.”

“I. Made. You. Don’t you ever get that wrong again.” Zach couldn’t help the smile his face split into. 

“If you fuckin’ made ME,” Zach could see Chris’ hands ball into fists, “why the hell am I like this.”

Shit. No. Too deep. Chris, stop. “Chris, stop.”

“NO.” He was still processing, but his words came out with pure venom. “If YOU made me, WHY did you leave me. Huh? WHY? If YOU were the one in charge, if YOU were calling the shots, if YOU made ME, WHY was it ALWAYS. MY. FAULT.”

Zach felt far-too familiar fear start forming. “YOU WERE THE ONE FUCKING BLAMING M—“

“SHUT THE FUCK UP.” Chris was about to blow a fuse. “IT WAS ALWAYS ME. ALWAYS. ANYTIME SOMETIN’ WENT WRONG, I WAS THE ROOT CAUSE. YOU ALWAYS— Y-YOU ALWAYS MADE IT COME BACK T’ ME.”

Shit. What will hurt him. “MAYBE IT’S BECAUSE YOU WERE. DON’T TELL ME YOU FUCKING VICTIM-COMPLEXED YOURSELF FOR ALL THESE YEARS, YOU SELF-ABSORBED—“

“GENTLEMEN,” the manager was there. Zach didn’t even see him show up. He was giving a look to Chris, seemed like he knew him. Shit. “Gentlemen, if this is going to be a fight, take it outside.” 

Zach looked at the manager, then at Chris. Chris’ face was getting red, tears were forming at what Zach had last tried to say. He ground his teeth. “Yeah. Let’s.” And he grabbed Zach’s arm, hard, tight, and yanked him to the door. Zach yelled a bit at the force. 

Chris shouldered the door open with a heavy thud, then all but threw Zach out onto the sidewalk. Pedestrians saw them and immediately rushed to avoid. Zach’s feet skidded on the cement as he tried to stand upright. Fuck, it was raining. Chris stood in the doorway, illuminated from behind, a perfect portrait of rage and hurt. The manager pulled the door shut, and Chris stumbled forward. Zach grabbed him by the arm and pulled himself up, which forced Chris to stumble closer. Their noses were almost touching. Zach was terrified, but too much anger and adrenaline was pumping through his body to realize it. Cold, bitterly cold rain soaked through him. Wind picked up and blew into Zach’s eyes. Tears, now streaming down Chris’ face, mingled with the piercing rain. The flushing on his face was still visible through the deep blue evening light. He flashbacked to their old fights, to comforting Chris, to holding hands and whispering that he wasn’t actually mad and that it’d be okay and wiping away tears from his gentle face. 

“How the hell did I ever find you attractive.” Zach practically spat on Chris. He swore he saw the tears start pouring faster. 

A street lamp kicked into action, and Zach could see one of Chris’ arms start to raise, about to punch. He felt panic kick in, pushed him back so the swing missed. Chris stumbled and nearly fell, but then surged forward to grab Zach by his shirt and pull him in. Zach lost his footing and dangled in the air by Chris’ grip. He kicked his legs out, trying to find support, but Chris only pulled him up higher. This was the closest he’d been to him in years. Zach flung his arms up and pulled down on Chris’ shoulders, and Chris slipped and they both fell. Zach’s back smacked down hard, one of Chris’ elbows landed in his stomach, and with that all the air left his lungs. 

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. No no nono no. 

Chris pushed himself up with a groan. He looked straight into Zach’s eyes, saw fear, and he. He fucking. Smiled. 

“S-Self-absorbed, my ass.” 

He pushed himself up by using Zach’s arm as a support, he could practically feel it bruising under the pressure. Chris moved up so his legs were on either side of Zach’s torso. He was stuck. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t get Chris off, and he couldn’t breathe. Oh my God. This is it. 

Chris raised his arm again. 

“CHRIS!!”

He immediately spun over his shoulder. Zach kept gasping for air. Mason and Julian were in the doorway

“CHRIS, GET OFF HIM,” Mason yelled. Thank fuck. 

Chris sat there, staring at his friends for a moment. Zach couldn’t read his expression anymore. His smile had dropped, but so had everything else. He could hear a bus approach and stop, brakes hissing and screaming. He kept trying to breathe, he couldn’t fucking breathe. 

Chris looked back at him. His bloodshot, teared up eyes were widened. Zach could see a plan form instantly. Fuck. 

He saw motion, then felt something hit his nose. Hard. Pain shot through his head, flashed across his eyes, shocked his lungs into action. He felt pressure leave his stomach and finally gasped in air.

Chris had fucking punched him. 

He felt blood on the back of his throat. He was seeing stars. He could hear Mason and Julian yelling something. 

But it didn’t matter. He managed to push himself upright just in time to see Chris jump on the bus, just in time to see the doors shut before Mason could follow. The bus left. Chris left. 

His nose hurt. He was cold and wet. He could barely breathe. Mason was staring after Chris, Julian was coming over to ask if he was okay. 

Chris was gone. 

He felt alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the fic wouldnt feel right until chris punched someone
> 
> hope youre doing alright
> 
> im tired
> 
> have a good rest of your day <3


	7. the exact same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> penultimate. 
> 
> really really sorry about the wait.

The door hissed open and he immediately jumped in. “CLOSE THE DOor, please, please, close it close it close it!!” The driver did so and accelerated as quickly as he could. Chris could see him in the corner of his eye, visibly confused yet concerned. 

He just stood at the front of the bus for a moment. His head was empty, his breath was sharp and quick and jagged, his hands and knees ached already, his heart was racing. Fuck. He didn’t think this through. The bus was just there, waiting, and Mason was trying to get him to stop, and Zach’s _face—_

“You ever gonna sit down, man?” The bus driver asked. Chris nodded, hollow, and wandered his way to the back of the bus. 

There were only two other people in the seats, both in the back row, but one was passed out and the other had headphones. Neither had seemed to react to his sporadic entrance. Chris dropped onto one of the middle seats. 

He looked down at his hand. It was still curled into a fist, and the sheer energy in his body right now wasn’t going to relax it any time soon. Bruises were already showing up on his knuckles. Fuck, it hurt. Especially when he poked at them. He put his hand away. His elbows hurt bad. He could see one of his knees peaking out through a new hole in his now bloodied jeans. He liked those fucking jeans, God. He leaned back in his seat. Tried to take a deep breath. Looked out the window. The pale, sickly yellow light in the bus reflected on the shitty plastic window to show his reflection. His stupid puffy eyes, wet hair stuck to his forehead, fucking red cheeks. Water dripped onto his nose. He wiped it off. 

He was on a random bus in the middle of LA, and he had no idea what route it was on, and it was fucking dark outside. He was soaked in rain and in emotions. His hands were shaking. He was so cold. He’d just punched his old best friend. He’d been called all the same things, he‘d known he hadn’t changed. Hell, neither of them seemed to have. His knees really hurt. His throat caught on his next attempt at a deep breath, his lungs hitched, his fucking eyes welled up again.

He felt alone. 

The bus driver had kicked him off eventually, it was maybe midnight now. He’d ridden for... what, a couple hours? The driver had given him a sympathetic look when he’d made his way out. 

But now he was standing on a sidewalk that he didn’t recognize, and the bus was gone, and his legs felt wibbly, and it was still fucking raining. Even harder now, to add insult to goddamn injury. 

He felt his phone buzz in his pocket. Then buzz again. And again. He pulled it out, who the hell was calling him—

Mason was. 

Chris wanted to just send him to voicemail. But he answered. 

“CHRIS— Oh my God, finally. Where are you?!” He sounded concerned. Genuinely. Maybe genuinely. Chris didn’t want to think he cared right now. 

“D’nno.” Not a lie. His mouth moved like jelly. 

“Are you still on the bus??”

“Nah.”

“Then,” he could hear Mason sigh, “then how do you not know where you are.”

“Dunno where g’ off,” he mumbled. 

Mason was silent for a moment at that. “Chris, do you need me to come get you..?”

He... didn’t expect that one. Was ready for Mason to be too pissed at him to care, ready to space out at a over-the-phone lecture first. “W... Wouldn’ make worse?”

“No. I promise.”

Chris hummed in reply. The rain somehow started coming down even harder. He forgot how to move his feet. 

“Can you share your location on Snap or something? So I can find you?”

“Mm. Yeah.” And he hung up. He opened his phone, turned his SnapMap back on, sent Mason a rainy pic of a streetlight, then shoved his phone back in his pocket. He refused to look at the mountain of text notifications that had already covered the lock screen. Refused to think that anyone cared right now. Why would anyone even fucking care about HIS safety? He punched Zach, he fucking hurt someone just because he’d been called names. Care about HIM, idiots. Sure, he’d heard all the shit that twisted the knife in his gut. All the shit that always hurt. But HE was the one who ACTUALLY hurt someone. For what? For being told again what he’d hoped wasn’t the truth? No one should be fucking worried about him, not if he hurt the one person he cared about the most with such ease. 

Fucking hell, man. 

He stared up at the rain. There wasn’t a single bit of sky visible, just suffocating clouds. He felt close to suffocating. He was numb and he was alone. He couldn’t quite breathe. 

He sat down. 

“Jesus, man,” Julian spoke through clenched teeth, “I didn’t think he was THAT strong.”

Zach just huffed out a breath. He was staring at himself through Julian and Mason’s mirror, the two of them were squeezed onto a bench. His face was locked in a passive frown, it just stayed like that. He held a wad of ice in a paper towel pressed against his jaw where it had smacked on the sidewalk in recoil. Julian was trying to carefully straighten his nose back into place, fucker was at a noticeable angle now.

It was all swollen up and shit. At least he could breathe? Zach just hoped the YouTube tutorial on how to fix this shit would work out, goddamn. He didn’t want to shill out a fucking hospital bill for this-

He felt something sharply move into place with a grinding crack that sounded like a fucking whip. “GOD-!!! FUCK, that HURT!” He yelled. His eyes were watering like crazy, Christ.

Julian had instantly pulled back at the noise. “I didn’t fucking know it’d do that!! I’ve only done this once before, jeez!”

Zach squeezed his eyes shut to stop the tears, moved the ice bag to his nose. It was bleeding again. “Did it look fine after?!”

He heard Julian scoff. “No, my nose was forever mangled, I look like a political caricature for life. It’ll be fine.” A pause. “Probably.”

“Probably,” Zach muttered, opening his eyes to check out the damage in the mirror. It looked straight now? He felt blood on the back of his mouth again. He kept the ice pack on it. “Probably.”

Julian looked at him for a bit, then sighed and rested his arms and head on the counter. “Can’t believe this happened, man.” Zach nodded. “What even,” Julian seemed to be weighing his words, “why did you two even get in a fight that bad?”

“Pussy can’t take hearing what he knows,” he spat out. Didn’t even think before saying that one. 

Julian was staring absently at the sink as he thought. “But, how’d it.. how did it get to that point? I know Chris gets angry, but punching? That was a first. For me.”

“Gotta love firsts,” Zach chuckled absently. “He fuckin’... came up to the table and tried to act all calm-mad, fuckin’ bullshit, and that just made me pissed off, and then I said shit and then he said shit, uh, I got him to finally fucking realize shit, and then he fucking threw me on the ground, and then.” He made a punching motion. “Yeah.”

Julian’s face scrunched a bit as he strung all that together. “Wh— What’d you make him.. realize..?”

Zach winced when he pushed the ice down a bit too hard. “Uh... That he never had as much fucking control as he wanted back when we were together? Fuckwad acted like I was his twisted little creation, when he’d probably still think he was fucking straight without me. Gh.”

Julian was quiet. 

“He also,” Zach had to wince again, “he also tried to say I blame him for everything, which is. Pfff. I only ever blamed him for shit if it WAS his fault, and it’s not MY fucking fault if it USUALLY ACTUALLY WAS HIS.” His brain spun like a tape recorder. “I’d already fucking forgotten that we’d used to argue about that when we were together. ‘Ehh, Zach, you don’t take responsibility, ehhh you’re making me feel paranoid,’ like just shut the fuck up.” He checked his nose again in the mirror. “Bullshit. If that fucker didn’t open his gaping mouth half the time, nothing would’ve gone wrong with us. It was always him, fucking saying shit. I’d tell him to stop, and HE’D be the one that’s upset? Even though he STARTED IT? And— And it was only ever ‘tooo muuuch’ when it was convenient. I usually lost those fights ‘cuz I was a little pussy bitch back then, but it was the end of the world when HE got close to a loss. Cut off actually important shit ‘cuz I was being ‘toooo fuckin’ harsh’ and ‘stop yelling ehhh’ and whatever. And I’d have to fucking lie to him, and say it’d be fine, and I wasn’t mad, and it was just fucking empty but he’d eat it up like a stupid, hopeful, oblivious baby.”

Fuck, that had all spilled out fast. 

“Jeez, man,” Julian managed to get out. 

But now Zach was on a roll, and he didn’t wanna just stop there. “Our relationship was fuckin’ weird, man. Had a honeymoon period for like, what, threeish years? ‘Cuz Chris didn’t know shit about dating guys and we barely saw each other in person? Then he started acting like he knew everything, tried switching shit up ‘for a change,’ eugh. Hated that.

“And- he’d do shit, and it’d bother me, but I wouldn’t say shit because I don’t like starting fights. I HATE starting fights, it makes me fucking queasy. I’ll continue one no sweat, but I can’t fucking bring myself to start shit. Even if it got really bad. And Chris learned that about me eventually, and he’d start the fight FOR me which just made me more mad, and I’d usually end up LOSING too since he got real good at making me afraid enough to stop. Fucking cyclical shit.” His nose hurt more from talking this much. “We got to a point where we just... fucking knew each other well enough that we’d say exactly what we wanted to, and know just how it’d hurt, and something about that mutual understanding made arguments worse. Like, in any other relationship we coulda pulled the ‘I didn’t mean it’ card, but dude we fucking meant everything. Words don’t stick to me much though, that’s- that’s our key difference. I don’t remember half the shit that came out of his mouth at me, but he fucking remembers everything I probably said to him, and that only makes it easier to be mad at him now, and.. and...

“...’S not like I, like, actually hate him or anything. I assume he hates me, why WOULDN’T he, but I, I. I kinda fuckin’ miss him.” Julian looked up a bit at that line, but now Zach REALLY couldn’t stop. “It’s really weird. Dunno. I miss the shit out of him, really, I do, but that fucker holds so much shit to his heart still that I can’t be the one to just forgive and forget anymore. HE’S gotta be the one to fess up, for once. And he better fucking take back that last fight, that...” God, he hated fucking thinking about it. 

Chris had done one small thing and Zach was stuck in the don’t-bring-it-up cycling shit and Chris had just... fucking snapped. Yelling louder than ever, absolutely livid, nearly broke a table with one hit just to make a point. Calmed down from the anger eventually, but he replaced it with just fucking sadness. Packed up some of his shit, left with biting words and teary eyes, came back for the rest of his stuff secretly. Zach had to just walk into a half-empty apartment one day with no warning, no note left on the table, nothing. The uncharacteristic-ness of their breakup ate him up the most. Chris was fucking gone from him, just like that.

Zach’s eyes were still watering up, but now he didn’t know from what. “I want him back, but not ‘til he can say sorry.”

The two just stayed quiet. Julian was lost in thought staring at a toothbrush, and Zach was doing everything he could to not look at the mirror now. 

“I’d,” Julian started with a empathetic little half-laugh, “I’d offer advice or something but I’ve never had a relationship like that before. I’m sorry, man.” Zach nodded again, readjusted the ice pack. “I.. can say one thing, though, I think he wouldn’t be too mad, uh.” 

“..Who?-“

“Chris, I mean. He doesn’t, uh, hate you. Really. I get why you think he would, hell if I were EITHER of you I’d probably still be pissed still, but um- he, he doesn’t hate you. Hell, I’d say you both feel the fuckin’ same, ‘specially with that last bit. Fuck, hope he doesn’t kill me for saying this.”

Zach was already in denial. “You’re saying he..?” No fucking way. Not with how he took arguments, not with his screwy relationship with the Past. How could he—

“He misses you the same way, yeah. He said it himself.”

The silence after that was heavier, now. Zach’s head felt simultaneously fucking empty, and full with the most goddamn thoughts he’d had in a while. 

But Julian got up after a minute and snapped Zach out of that. “I think Mase’s almost home, shoulda g-“ he froze when he checked his phone, read something for a second. “...Yeah, he, uh, he um got Chris uh- home. Me and him, Mason, uh, we’re gonna run to the store. I-I’ll get you a real ice pack, we won’t be long maybe.” And he left the bathroom just like that. 

Zach just sat there, fucking mystified. Chris felt the same. He felt the goddamn same. They’d both been sitting on their asses the whole time, making assumptions, and they were both.. dead wrong. He thought about that for a bit. 

Then he realized he had left his phone on the couch. 

God knows how much time had passed, waiting for Mason to show up. Chris started wondering if he was gonna show up. He wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t, he wouldn’t be mad either. He probably deserved it, probably deserved to just sit in front of some run-down storefront on a broken curb in the rain with his feet ankle deep in a puddle forever. He got really cold at one point, wondered if he should try to find somewhere to go inside. He didn’t.

A car rolled up, slowed down before it could splash him with a puddle. An umbrella shot out of the driver seat and a person came out soon after, who all but ran around the car towards him. Was he gonna get shot? His eyes couldn’t focus. The person came over, got close enough that the umbrella was over Chris, too. Now it felt weird to not feel rain hammering onto his skull. 

His brain registered a voice had been speaking, had been yelling the whole time. He tuned in. “Chris, please, say something.”

Wait. “...Mason?”

He heard Mason sigh. “C’mon, buddy, let’s get you out of here.” He extended his hand out. Chris stared at the hand for a bit. What was this. Is this a trap? Should he take it? He probably shouldn’t. 

He grabbed the hand. Mason steadied himself then pulled Chris to his feet. Chris nearly fell flat on his face, but a careful hand on his shoulder kept him upright. Mason guided him into the passenger seat. 

He sat there, hunched over in his seat, vision washed orange by the shitty car light. Mason clambered into the driver seat, throwing his umbrella in the backseat, and got the car started. Chris could feel him looking at him but he didn’t want to look back. Didn’t want to move. Mason shifted the car into drive, and the two were away. 

It took a couple minutes for Chris’ brain to finally catch up to what was happening. Why had Mason actually come? Why’d he bother? He didn’t.. he didn’t get it. “...Hey, Mase?”

“Yeah Chris?” He replied almost instantly. 

“Why’d y’.. come get me?” 

Mason seemed mildly confused that he’d even asked that. “You were lost, and it was raining, and I’m not just gonna leave you to mope around like that.”

Chris was staring at his hand again. “Even though I jus’ did that?”

“Did wh,” Mason started, but then glanced over and saw how he was sitting and connected the dots. He just sighed softly. “From what I’ve gathered, you got provoked into it. And I don’t know Zach as well as I know you, you know that. You’re my friend, Chris.”

That made him feel a little warm. “...Thanks, then.”

Mason quietly laughed. “Yeah.” He let the air hang on that for a moment before speaking again. “But... mmh, if it’s not too much to ask, why’d it happen..?”

Chris frowned. “I...”

“You can take your time, it’s fine.”

They usually only used that phrase in mocking. That contrast kinda spun Chris into thought. “I mean.. he fuckin’.. made me madder than I started out, ’s real good at doin’ that. Then the manager kicked us out, ‘n I stopped thinkin’. I just. Just wanted him t’ regret makin’ it worse.” He frowned harder. “God, I feel like shit fer sayin’ that.”

Mason just nodded in understanding, though. “No, it... You kinda make sense.”

“I fuckin’ regret it already, I can say that much,” an empty laugh escaped him, “hate that I actually.. did that. That kinda fight wouldn’a gotten that bad when we were still together, but tonight just...”

“If you wanna stop there, that’s fine.”

Chris nodded a bit. “I’m jus’ fucking sorry, man. That I fucking did that. ‘N sorry fer dragging you out here.”

“Don’t apologize to me for that second one, I’ll get dragged out for you whenever,” Mason’s tone was more stern, yet even more caring. “And for the first, I’d say... next time you see him in person, if that’s tomorrow or if that’s twenty years from now, say it. Before you say anything else.”

“Yeah..?”

Mason nodded. “Yeah.”

Chris stared out the window at the water drops. “...Yeah. I’ll do that.”

“Good.” He could hear Mason’s smile. 

The rest of the car ride was mostly quiet. Chris had time to calm himself down, time to shove aside some emotions and thoughts to be dealt with later. The two laughed at a couple people acting stupid on the side of the street, complained about a guy driving stupidly slow, remarked how not clean this car was for being a rental. They eventually stopped and got out though, and Chris realized that they were at Mason and Julian’s place. The rain had let up for a moment, now it was just a sprinkle. Mason stood for a moment texting someone, Chris went slowly up to their gate. Mason caught up, let the both of them in, and they got inside the apartment before the rain started pouring again. Julian was just coming out of the bedroom when they both walked in, closing the door behind himself for some reason. He and Mason exchanged a soft greeting as Chris made his way over to fall onto the couch. 

“We’ll uh, be right back Chris. Getting stuff at Walmart I think,” said Mason. Chris mumbled a vague “alright” noise, and the two left. 

The apartment was silent. He was alone. He could keep thinking about what happened, could think about how he’d apologize... 

Instead, he finally got out his phone to check whatever texts were there. He noticed there was another phone on the couch next to him, though. It was a familiar one, did Julian leave his? Wait, no, that’s not Julian’s case. Did he get a new one? Nah wait this one looks used, who—

The bedroom door opened. Chris’ eyes shot up to identify whoever it was. Did someone break in? Was he gonna get robbed?

Wait. 

His stomach dropped. 

“...I thought you were at, at your place.” Zach said. 

Zach. Just. Standing there, looking down at him. Holding something on his nose. Holy shit. Guilt and tension fucking surged through his stomach, up his throat. Zach opened his mouth to speak, but he remembered what Mason said first.

“I-I’m sorry.”

Zach pulled a double take, and that just ate up Chris even more. “..What?”

“I’m sorry, I really fuckin’ mean it,” he was speaking fast now, he had to get it out before it all could hit him, “for punching you. I-I’m sorry for being a cunt while we were together, for always being angry, I’m sorry for everything. I’m fucking- I’m sorry. I regret so much shit man-“

“Chris...“

“A-And,“ He was stuck in that one limbo, that perfect, horrid spot where you’re so close to choking up and breaking down yet you’re at the most clarity you’ve felt in a while, “and, I know that- please- I know that that s-sorry won’t ever cut it. I know that. But I dont know what else to say, since that’s the truth, since I- I really am sorry. I’m sorry that I.. I hurt you, and I’m sorry that we won’t ever be the same.” 

Zach was just staring at him now, unreadable. 

“Zach, I-“ Fuck he couldn’t stop it. Shit, fuck, goddamn it, oh my God, “I-I miss you, I miss _you,_ I m-miss loving you, being with you, I’m fucking sorry. Christ, it doesnt sound like a word anymore,” his throat caught, “I... I’m. I’m so g-goddamn sorry, Zach.”

He said it all. They both lingered there, in the loudest goddamn silence in Chris’ life. He couldn’t tell how Zach was reacting, and that just made him feel worse. Christ, he just punched him and now he’s expecting him to take that?! Oh my God. Why’d he ever open his mouth, fucking why. 

Chris stood up. Zach couldn’t move his legs anymore. “I-I... I should go, I’m so s—“ 

No. Wait. “I— I’m sorry too.”

Chris just stared at him.

Zach took a deep breath, lowered the ice pack. Fuck, he was gonna say it all again. “Chris, I’m sorry for saying things that I know would get to you, for doing you like that. Shouldn’t’ve done that for the serious shit especially. A-And I’m sorry for always fucking making shit worse, and for- for blaming you.” Fuck. “I’m sorry for not being clear until the worst possible moments, for letting everything build up.”

Zach’s brain was spinning as he stared at Chris. The guy had gone from total shock to total anxiety so quickly, and now he was progressing into an emotion he hadn’t seen since they were together. His face was getting soft, his eyes were getting wet, his hands were pulling at each other. “I’ve fffucking missed you ever since we..”

Broke up. “Me t-t—“

“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. About all that we did together, a-all that we’ve done. All that we meant to do. Fuck, I’m so sorry— you,“ his mouth pushed into a smile that melted Zach’s fucking body, he laughed a bit but it was just sorrow. He was getting closer to Zach, small steps that he probably didn’t even realize he was taking, and Zach found himself doing it too. They were fucking coming toward each other like magnets. Zach just wanted to get closer and closer. 

“Zach, y-you keep fucking popping back up in my life the more I try to move on. I just miss you, I m-miss... being with you. I-I’ve missed fucking kissing you, I’ve missed f—“

He couldn’t take it, they were standing just a few inches apart now. “G-God, Chris, stop talking.”

“I— wh..what?” Chris was so close to him now he could practically see him breathe, see him holding back shuddering sobs on each inhale.

“I’ve felt the same, Chris.” Zach’s throat felt dry.

Chris blinked slowly. “Y-Yeah..?” Zach nodded, just a little, just enough. Their feet were touching, Chris’ face was unbelievably close,

Chris leaned in closer,

and so did Zach. 

They were. Kissing. Their first kiss in years, and they’re both bruised and crying now and oh, my God, they’re fucking kissing again. They both feel and have felt the same way, and it’s bittersweet to realize. Now they can fucking realize that they could’ve gotten back together at any point, but they were too goddamn.. stubborn. They’re kissing. Chris is hugging Zach, holding onto him like a goddamn lifeline, Zach is getting as close to him as he can, they’ve both missed this. Holding on tight enough to each other now to bruise, gripping hard on hair, barely able to breathe. Tears mingle into one stream. Ragged inhales sync together and grow less panicked. They’ve refound their old positions, Zach nearly suspended in the ajr, Chris grounding the both of them down, and their old rhythm is fucking returning. The kiss, their first in years, breaks. Deep breaths. 

“O-Oh my God,” Chris stammers out. Zach immediately goes back in.

They find the couch, Zach pushes Chris down, Chris yanks his shirt down with him, and they’re still fucking kissing. The realization settles in even harder, even heavier, as they both claw and clamber to catch up on years of missed time. Zach can’t stop. But now Chris can’t breathe, and Zach stops.

Chris just looks up at him, a choked laugh comes out. “W-We really felt the same, God.”

“All this ffucking time.”

“We- We were both ready to die on the same hill,” Chris says.

Zach can’t help but smile, a sad, soft, comforting type of smile. “I’ll die on your hill any day, Chris.”

He can’t help but laugh again, cry a bit harder. “I’ll die on your hill.” And now he can breathe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again, sorry this took so long ahaha. perfectionism and procrastination and that pesky pandemic all went hand-in-hand on keeping me from making this one as fast, i hope it’s alright. hope it wasn’t too long either- this one is now officially the longest chapter i’ve ever written, wowza.
> 
> (thank you to the lovely people who reached out for beta-ing on the other fic i’ve started, you’re v much appreciated. as soon as this fic is done with, i’ll try to be working on keeping you guys in the loop on the new fic and my ideas (hint: they’re still very loose). sorry for being awkward in dms, and for not having you read this chapter first, i’m just worried i’ll let you down. ya feel? you WILL get all of the next fic though, i swear it.)
> 
> one more chapter to go, fellas! not spoiling the contents yet. however, i will re-edit the ENTIRE STORY before i publish the end. writing this last chapter made me see so many loose ends, and i wanna fix it. so when you see the finale drop, i invite you to take a skim through the whole book first! please, i‘m gonna be going full effort making this entire fic squeaky clean. :,)
> 
> thank you for reading this fic so far. the final end note is going to be emotional to write, ngl.  
> alright, it’s late for me rn, i’m gonna go and get some kickass zzz’s. have a good rest of your day <3


	8. epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GOD IM SO SORRY FOR THE WAIT ON THIS, PLS ENJOY YOU PATIENT SAINT

“So yeah, um,” Chris mumbled into the phone, embarrassed at how embarrassed he felt for admitting it, “me ‘n Zach are back together now—“

He could hear Mick’s end make some harsh clatter noise, like he’d thrown his phone onto a table. He could distant shouting and whooping for a few seconds, before Mick picked the phone back up. “OH, Chris, you make me a happy man. Like, three different people owe me $50 now. YES!”

Laughter burst out of his mouth. “DUDE, what?!” 

“HA! What’s it, uh, Tomar, Niall, and whatsherface- Waffle, or uh.”

“Amy bet on this shit? Who even told her?!”

“Amy, that’s it!- Oh, I accidentally did. She’s been invested since the party, dude.”

Chris half-laughed, half-groaned, wondering how many people knew about this shit now. “Christ, man. Guess I ain’t tellin’ ya secrets everrrr agaiiiin.”

Mick chuckled. “I’m just keeping the score even, it’s fair game now.”

“What do you MEAN it’s even NOW—“

“YOU KNOW what you did, Chris,” Mick spat with some playful anger, “you know EXACTLY what.”

He thought back a few years. He grinned. “Oookay, heeyeah, I do.”

“That’s right, baby.”

“Don’t call me baby, babe.”

“Okay, babe.” They laughed. But alas, Mick sighed a time-to-go sigh. “Alright man, I’ll try to come over soon. Promise. Just don’t be fucking Zach when I get there this time.”

“THREE YEARS AGO, MICK, THREE! THAT WAS 2014, DUDE!”

“Three years I’ve been scarred for life for, yeah—“

“IT was aN ACCIDEEENT! YOU WERE EARLY.”

“Alright, alright, gaywad. Give him an extra big smooch from me, would ya?”

Chris laughed. “Will do, man. See ya around.”

“See ya.” And with that, he hung up. 

Chris stared at his lock screen for a moment. Well, Mick knew, which meant that everyone else would know in a few days. Christ. Hopefully everyone keeps it private again.

He clicked his phone off and looked out the backseat window. The last of Zach’s boxes shook in the shitty cab as cars clambered through traffic. The sky was gray and cloudy, in between rain and not-rain, but that made it feel sort of like home. It never seemed to rain in LA, so every moment it got close was a moment made more nostalgic. 

A lot needed to be done with the rest of today. Unpack Zach’s shit, finish unpacking his own shit, move all the shit around, ugh. Moving was hard enough when he was the only one doing it, when he was the only one moving in or out, but having to deal with moving two people into one place? A lot harder than he wanted. He wanted to go to sleep right now, honestly, but it’d be hard to do that without at least a bed set up. Or a couch. Or anything. The place the two of them had found was good by LA’s standards — corner apartment, 5th story, and large for a 1 bedroom 1 1/2 bathroom place — but it didn’t have any furniture in it already. Not even a leftover couch. God, he wasn’t looking forward to having to build all the Ikea shit, the last time they’d tried was—

His phone buzzed in his hand; Niall was calling. He swiped and held the phone up to his ear. 

“Fuck you and Zach, dude, I was gonna spend that £40 tonight!”

Damn, Mick goes fast.

“Got enough TP?”

Zach rolled his eyes, softly kicking their door shut behind him. “That hasn’t been a problem for like, three weeks now.”

Chris grinned at him from the couch before getting up to help with the groceries. “I’m just saying, maybe it doesn’t hurt to be a prepper. They had it right.”

“All the Left 4 Dead getting to you now?”

“Shut up and take your mask off already, fag.” Chris managed to open the fridge door with his elbow without dropping their eggs this time. “And no, it wasn’t the Left 4 Dead.” He paused to close the door behind him. “It was Resident Evil.”

Zach pushed his mask under his chin. “I’m not gonna let you fill our living room with cans of beans and guns and shit.”

“Nah, I won’t. You’re the only thing I’d wanna keep around in The Apocalypse.” Chris grabbed the chips with a wink. 

“How cute, aw.”

“Hey shut up, that was a good one!”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t!” Zach squeezed past him to put up the extra Clorox wipes, letting Chris lean down for a quick smooch. “It was really cheesy, though.”

Chris hummed. “Thought you liked cheese.”

“Yeah, but not like. A pound. I don’t want a full course of one hunk of cheese. Not gonna just grab a block and bite it like a big juicy apple, dude.”

Chris’ face scrunched up. “Juicy cheese.”

Ew, okay. “Don’t make me think about the things I say, God.” They both got a laugh at that. 

The two of them got everything put away and went back to the couch. They talked about the videos Chris needed done, complained again about LA’s stupid dumb lockdown, then eventually stopped talking and just checked their phones. Zach leaned against Chris’ shoulder, Chris rested his head on Zach’s. 

Zach could hear Chris’ cat chowing down on his food in the kitchen. “I got cat food, right? I think I did.”

Chris frowned. “I think I put it up, yeah.”

“I mean, we’ve got those leftovers if I didn’t.”

“I will not feed Django fucking Chinese takeout, dude.”

“It’s orange chicken, it literally has chicken in the name! Cats like birds, they like chicken!”

Christ snorted. “I’ll feed you cat food next time I’m cooking, just wait.”

“Okay okay, I’ll take it back!!” Zach can’t stand the smell of that shit, even thinking about it makes him want to puke. “Please don’t. Medieval torture. I’ll call the cops on you for domestic violence.”

“I’d make it taste like the best shit you’ve ever fucking had. You’ll be amazed. You’d ask me what it is, be all excited, and I’d tell you you just ate fuckin’ cat food.”

Zach made a gagging noise and scooted to the other corner of the couch. “I’ll vomit it all up inside your pillowcase.”

Chris was laughing. “Okay that’s too far! No, God, I hate that. I don’t want a vomit pillow.”

“Oh, five-star cat food served against my will isn’t too far? Poisoning me isn’t too far? I see how it is.” Zach leaned back, hand rested on his forehead for dramatic effect.

That got Chris laughing harder. “How’s it poison! It’s like, fish and shit!”

Zach pulled a big sigh. “The abuse I put up with in this household...”

Chris laughed harder. Zach couldn’t not join in at that point.

Time passed. Zach watched the sunset reflect on the opposite buildings’ windows before disappearing into a smear of oranges and pinks. The living room grew darker as they flipped through channel after channel on their TV. They’d gotten up to grab their aforementioned leftovers at one point (and yes, Zach checked, he’d gotten cat food), and eventually settled for watching a shitty paranormal docuseries that they could make fun of. So there they sat, curled together, discarded food containers left on the floor, Chris’ arm around Zach’s shoulders, shouting at the stupid people on TV. It was a good night. 

Zach’s phone buzzed with a text notification, but Chris checked his own fitst so he didn’t open it. Probably something from some group text, hopefully unimportant. 

Chris groaned, however. “Shit, we were supposed to record tonight.”

Zach frowned. “That was for like, 11 though. What time is it now?”

“It’s 12:55,” Chris mumbled, already tapping out a reply.

“No way.”

“Mhm.”

“Tomorrow then, I guess?” It was a nice night, he didn’t want to get up and record. 

Chris paused before he hit send. Zach saw him hold down backspace and type a much shorter reply. “Yeah, tomorrow.”

“Yeah.”

His phone buzzed again with Chris’ reply, but he left it alone. They turned their attention back to the TV, just in time to see some guy poking at a mass of worms with too much glee. 

It was a good night.

**Author's Note:**

> man, this fic has been a journey. i’m so sorry for the wait, i’ve always struggled with endings so i kept making every excuse to myself to push this off. wanted it to be perfect, didn’t have inspiration, blah blah i was stupid lol. i wrote the first half months ago but never finished it, but the weight of my sins finally caught up with me so here’s the end! sorry that its short haha
> 
> also, oh my GOD dude, i was sent fanart that someone drew of this fic???? holy shit dude?????? honestly that is what kicked me back into action, ive felt so happy the past few days. literally i never thought that would happen for something i created BRO im so happy. whoever did that pls comment, ill post every one of ur socials i LOVE UUUU
> 
> anyways, thank you for reading. so sorry for the stupid wait, again, i dont know what overtook me but i will hold myself to a much higher standard on whatever i publish next. (i have a few chapters reserved of the other fic i have posted, so i’ll try and get those out soon!) thank you all so much for the kind words on all these chapters, getting comment and kudos notifs never fails to make me smile. 
> 
> i’ll be re-editing everything sometime in these next few days; i write on mobile typically, but i’m waiting for my next chance to get on a computer to do the dirty work. ill polish it all off, hopefully clear up the timeline (i see a lot of holes now, facepalmemoji) and other such things!
> 
> thanks for reading, im glad so many people have enjoyed this lil story. youre all amazing :) <3 have a great rest of ur day


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